


She is Not of This World

by Mad_Birdy



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Beware, Character Death, Drinking, Drug Abuse, F/M, Gen, Implied Sexual Content, Self Harm, drug overdose, there's few trigger warnings for, this fic is super feelsy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-08
Updated: 2016-06-07
Packaged: 2018-07-13 01:02:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 22,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7131731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mad_Birdy/pseuds/Mad_Birdy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Miranda Thompson, 27, of Winterville, Maine. Her life was never easy but on her worst days she knew she could rely on the SPN Family. But when she gets high one night and is found by two men who look like Sam and Dean, will she pass it off as hallucination? Or has she found herself in the world of Supernatural just when life seemed at its worst? (yes all right it's a "fangirl falls into the world of her favorite fandom and knows all about it and is badass" but those are the ones I liked to write when I was starting out so shush)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

Olive Thompson was not dressed for the weather conditions. It was below freezing, snow was falling heavily from the sky, and all she was wearing was too-short jean shorts, a thin t-shirt, and a threadbare hoodie. At the moment, though, Olive couldn’t have cared less about the temperature or the fact that she was most definitely going to have hypothermia if she got out of the weather alive. She couldn’t care less because in her head she was flying high above it all, shimmering brown wings spread out as she coasted on the air. She was under the influence of too much alcohol and even more drugs.

She hadn’t walked into the bar that night with the intention of getting dangerously high and drunk. She had just wanted a meal and some escape from the cold. She managed to beg a meal and a drink from the barkeeper while she considered “working” that night to boost her funds a bit. But she had balked at the idea of having to suffer through a night with some strange man who might smell of piss and shit, so she had motioned the barkeeper over and told him to get her the best he had for what money she had left. She handed him a wad of cash and he came back with four small plastic bags, each with a different powder in it. He told her what each one was and then left. She retreated to a back room, where they kept the tools needed to get high.

Olive had only meant to take one bag of drugs. But she hadn’t felt anything after downing the first, so soon the second, third, and half of the fourth bag followed. By then she was higher than she had ever been, save once, and she headed back out to the main room. At the bar she ordered shots and downed those, giggling, before looking up at the television for a moment. Her favorite show, Supernatural, was on and she stared at it, mesmerized, before getting another shot. “You okay, Olive?” the barkeeper asked as he watched her down her fifth shot of whiskey.

“Oh yeah,” she slurred. “I’m fine.”

“How are you paying, then? You just used all your money for the drugs.”

“I’ll pay you after I work tonight. I’ll pay you tomorrow.”

The barkeeper sighed but nodded. She would be back at the bar anyway, so he could keep an eye on her and make sure she paid what she owed. She smiled and then left the bar, oblivious to the chill of the mid-winter air.

Now Olive was walking down the middle of a road, singing badly to herself. Snow covered her: it was stuck to her eyelashes and hair and it was caked to her worn tennis shoes. She didn’t notice her steps getting slower, or that her body was starting to sag, or that her nose and fingers were blue from the cold. She didn’t know her organs were shutting down, both from the influence of drugs and alcohol in her system and from the weather conditions. She didn’t even notice the sound of a car approaching until she turned to see headlights huge and right in front of her, and she screamed at the same time that the car’s horn blared at her. She tried to dodge out of the path of the car but found that her feet wouldn’t move like she wanted them too, so she fell sideways onto the road as the car managed to swerve around her without hitting her.

The car screeched to a halt, the deep rumble of its engine somehow familiar to her. Then there was the slamming of car doors and someone called out, “Hey, lady!” She tried to stand to confront the people who’d almost run her over but she could barely push herself up. “Hey, are you alright?” the same voice asked, this time closer.

“Dean,” a second voice said. “Look at her. She’s covered in snow.”

“Yeah, I can see that, Sam.” There were footsteps, and then the blurry face of a person entered her vision. “Hey. Hey! You there, lady?”

A second face appeared leaning over her just as her vision cleared. She blinked once, twice, three times, then came to the conclusion that she must be hallucinating. Probably the drugs, she thought, nodding. But she giggled and decided to go with what she thought she saw. So she reached up as best she could and pointed at the second person. “You’re Sam fucking Winchester,” she said, slowly and carefully. Then she laughed her head off because she’d made a reference to the gag reel for season ten of Supernatural.

The thing was, it really was Sam Winchester and his older brother, Dean. They stiffened when she said his name, then looked at each other in confusion when she started to laugh. “Think she’s a demon?” Dean asked.

“I think we should find out.” Sam stood and went to the trunk of the Impala, taking out various weapons and tools. He came back over and splashed Olive with holy water. She didn’t react, so he shrugged. “Not demon.”

Dean took a silver blade from Sam and pressed it against her arm. Still no reaction from her. “Not shifter or werewolf, either.”

“And I doubt she’s a vampire. So I guess she’s just a civilian?”

“I guess so. Hm.” Dean grabbed her gently and set her upright against the wheel of the Impala before searching her pockets for identification.

Olive giggled and said, “You’re Dean and you like frisking women.” Then her brow creased as she thought about it. “Or maybe it’s frisky women?” She started mumbling to herself: “My name is Dean Winchester. I’m an Aquarius, I enjoy sunsets, long walks on the beach and frisky women. And I did not kill anyone.” Her voice got louder as she said, “Well, that last part’s not true. You’ve killed lots of people, Mr. Dean, but I don’t mind. Most of them were monsters anyway.” The brothers had frozen in place again when she had been quoting Dean, but then the man snapped back and finished his search of her pockets.

He flipped open her wallet and read her license. “Olive Miranda Thompson, twenty-seven, of Winterville, Maine.” His search also uncovered a small plastic bag half-filled with white powder.

“Is that what I think it is?” Sam asked, squinting at the bag.

Dean stuck his finger in, then licked the powder off. He made a face and replied, “If you think it’s drugs, then yeah, it is.”

“So she’s, what? High?”

“Looks like it. And half frozen to death. Her hands and face are almost blue.” Dean made a decision then. “Alright, let’s get her to a hospital.” He lifted her as Sam opened the back door of the Impala. As Dean slid her into the back seat, he noticed an anti-possession symbol tattooed on the back of her neck. “Hm. That’s weird.”

“What?”

“She’s got the same tattoo as we do, except hers is on the back of her neck.” Her arm fell off the seat as he let go of her and he noticed another tattoo on her inner arm, this one of an exorcism in fancy script. “And there’s an exorcism on her arm.”

“Weird.”

“You’re telling me.” Dean slid into the driver’s seat and turned the Impala back on. Soon they were pulling up in front of a hospital and Dean took Olive to the ER while Sam took advantage of the WiFi to run her name and license number.

“So?” he asked as his elder brother and the random druggie girl sat down in chairs next to him.

“So they’re going to try to get her admitted as soon as possible,” Dean answered. “But since she’s not actually dying yet, she’s going to have to wait.”

“Great,” Sam sighed as Olive giggled in the seat to his left.

“What’d you find?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing. Olive Miranda Thompson from Winterville doesn’t exist.” They both looked at the mystery girl, who was now staring cross-eyed at a piece of her dyed-blue hair that had fallen out of her ponytail into her face.

“Hm.”

They sat there for a while longer, waiting for a doctor or nurse to come out and admit Olive, who was steadily getting worse. She had grown quiet as they sat, and then her head started drooping forward. At one point she almost fell out of her seat and Sam had to reach over and catch her quickly before she hit the floor. Then the shivering started, which slowly progressed to shaking. Dean took off his coat and wrapped it around her shoulders tightly, hoping that would calm her down. It didn’t work. A few minutes later, Olive had fallen to her knees on the floor and was throwing up the meal she’d had at the bar earlier, gasping for breath between heaves. Sam ran for the nurse on duty while Dean knelt beside this stranger he’d almost hit on the road and did one of the greatest services a man can ever do for a woman: he held her hair back while she puked on the floor. He wasn’t overly worried until what came out wasn’t food any more; it was blood.

That’s when a doctor and a team of nurses rushed out with a gurney and lifted her onto it. They wheeled her away into the hospital and then a janitor came out to clean up the mess she’d left on the floor. The nurse on duty asked them a few questions and then they were leaving, sliding back into the Impala and heading for Bobby’s.

When they were sitting in Bobby’s kitchen as he angel-proofed the house, they told him about the girl they’d almost hit. “That sounds strange,” Bobby said into the silence that followed the story.

“Yeah,” Sam replied. “I know we’ve got bigger fish on our plate right now, but we need to make sure we go back and talk to her once she’s better.”

“Yeah, for sure,” Dean said. “No one has an anti-possession symbol and exorcism tattooed onto them if they don’t know what it means.”

Sam nodded. Then a thought occurred to him. “You think she was a fan of the Supernatural books?”

“What, the ones Chuck wrote?”

“Yeah. The publisher had an anti-possession symbol tattoo on her–”

“Yeah, I remember.” Dean was silent as he considered the possibility. “Maybe. I don’t know. She didn’t seem like a reading kind of person.” Just then Dean’s phone rang. “Hello? — yes — really — well if she gets better, would you let me know? — thanks.” He hung up and said, I guess we’ll have to wait until she wakes up to ask her.”

“Wakes up?” Bobby asked.

“The doctor says she slipped into a coma after they got her into the emergency room. Not surprising, seeing as how she had four different drugs in her system reacting to the whiskey she’d had as well.”

Sam shook his head. “I’m surprised she was still alive when we found her.”

Dean nodded, then stood and said, “Well, that’s a mystery we’ll have to put aside for another time. Let’s finish angel-proofing this house and then hit the sack.”


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Olive wakes in the hospital and doesn't know where she is. She runs into Castiel and Dean, who are visiting Lisa and Ben.

Olive was comatose, thin and pale, lying in her bed in the hospital Dean and Sam had dropped her off at. Her breathing was shallow, her heartbeat irregular. The doctor feared she wouldn’t last another night in her condition. The drugs she’d taken had been the last straw for her already frail system, and the inexplicable hypothermia shut down whatever the drugs had missed. The nurses who checked in on her whispered together, lamenting the loss of someone so young. They only wished she had some family they could get in touch with to be with her in her final moments, but her license had proved to be a fake one since no one named Olive Miranda Thompson had ever been born.

In another part of the country, Dean and Sam summoned the angel Balthazar to help them find Lisa and Ben, who had been kidnapped by Crowley’s demons to get the brothers off his tail while he found a way to open a door to Purgatory. All thoughts of the strange, half-frozen girl on the highway who’d known their names had been pressed from their minds as they focused on rescuing two of the most important people in Dean’s life. Balthazar eventually helped the boys and zapped them to the warehouse where Lisa and Ben were being held. Despite Sam being knocked out and locked up, Dean managed to rescue the two, though not before the demon within Lisa stabbed her.

Reunited with his brother, Dean rushed Lisa to the nearest hospital, hoping against hope that the doctors there could keep her from dying. The doctors did their best to save her, but it wasn’t enough and they said she had a day, at most. Dean was heartbroken, and he sat at her side as the light of dawn filtered in through the window.

In the other hospital, Olive flatlined. Nurses and doctors rushed around, trying to resuscitate her but failing each time. Then she vanished. One moment she was there, and the next she was gone. For a while, the medical staff in her room stood in stunned silence. Then a switch seemed to flip, and they all went about their normal business, as if Olive had never been there. It was a strange occurrence to say the least, but when questioned about it later, the staff would remember nothing of Olive or the brothers that delivered her to the hospital.

~

Olive’s eyes flew open as she sat up. She looked around, confused. She was in a hospital room, the light of midday streaming in through the window in the far wall. How had she gotten there? The last thing she remembered was going to the back room of the bar to get high. She’d had the strangest dream: she’d been flying, and then she met Sam and Dean Winchester. She smiled. There must have been an episode on while she was high. Then she frowned. But why was she in a hospital now? Had she taken too much? Her eyes widened at the thought of having almost overdosed and she got out of bed to look for a doctor for answers.

She left her room and looked up and down the halls. The hospital seemed fairly busy and she didn’t see any doctors, so she walked down one hall, unsure where she was going. Then something began tugging at her, leading her a certain way, and she followed the urging down halls and around corners. Gradually she noticed the sound of voices. Not just the background voices of the hospital staff and patients and families but the voices of two people she knew. She followed the voices and the tugging to a room. As she walked in, she noticed a woman lying in the hospital bed, and two men standing on either side of her. The one in a tan trenchcoat laid his hand on her forehead and said, “She’s fine now. She’ll wake soon. Dean, I said I’m sorry and I meant it.”

“Thank you,” Dean said. “I wish this changed anything.”

“I know. So do I. All else aside, I just wanted to fix what I could.” Castiel turned to leave and that’s when the two of them realized they were being watched. For a moment Olive could only stand in silence as the two men looked at her, and then Dean spoke.

“What the hell?” he said. “You’re that girl we almost hit the other day.”

“Dean,” Castiel started, but Olive didn’t hear what else he said because at that moment time seemed to slow down and she realized what scene this was. That was Lisa in the bed, having almost died because a demon had jumped her ass for security reasons on Crowley’s orders. And Castiel was working with Crowley to open a door to Purgatory so that he could take all the souls and defeat Raphael. He had been keeping it a secret since he’d pulled Sam out of hell, and in the process of doing that he had spied on and betrayed the Winchesters, and now was part of the reason that Lisa was hurt. It had been years since she’d last seen this episode, but Olive suddenly felt all the raw emotion, all the pity and frustration and especially rage focused at Castiel, rise up again.

She clenched her fists, drew herself up to all five feet and three inches, and marched over to the angel, drawing her arm back to punch him in the face. In her head she was saying, this is gonna hurt, this is gonna hurt, this is gonna hurt, because what could one small human like her do against an angel? Even Dean and Sam winced when they punched Castiel. But she was determined, and so before either man could react, her fist swung through the air and connected with Castiel’s face. And the unexpected happened: the punch actually affected him. He staggered back a few steps and put a hand to his face. Olive’s fist, however, felt exactly as expected: as if she’d broken every single bone in it. The pain was like millions of red-hot needles stuck into her hand at once, but she refused to give in to the pain, so she started to yell at Castiel.

“You son of a bitch!” Her voice started out low and dangerous, but as she spoke it grew in volume and pitch. “You arrogant, self-righteous, stuck-up prick!” And she swung again, this time with her other hand. As it connected she said, “You fucking team up with Crowley to open Purgatory? What the hell is wrong with you?”

At that point Dean had come around the bed and had grabbed her by the shoulders to restrain her, saying, “Hey, cool it, man!” Castiel straightened, confusion and pain written all over his face.

Olive shook free of Dean. “I’m cool now. I’m cool.” She continued to glare at Castiel, though, who tilted his head as he regarded her.

“What is your name?” he asked. “Where are you from?”

“And why’d you punch him?” Dean added.

“I’m Olive Thompson,” she answered. “I’m from Winterville, Maine, but I think I’ve somehow left my universe and come to yours. I punched him because he betrayed you, Sam, and Bobby. And because he’s a self-righteous, arrogant little son of a bitch.”

“Left your universe?” Castiel narrowed his eyes.

“Yeah. You guys have already done the French Mistake, right?” The two looked blank and Olive realized her mistake. “Shit, sorry, you guys don’t live by episode titles. I mean, Balthazar has already sent Dean and Sam through to a world where nothing supernatural ever happens and they had to pretend to be actors in a TV show about their life?”

“You mean–” Dean leaned in a bit. “You’re from that world?”

“Bingo. You’re played by Jensen Ackles, Sam’s played by Jared Padalecki, and Castiel here is played by Misha Collins. I’m a huge fan.”

“So if you know this scene,” Castiel said. “I’m assuming you know the rest?”

“Opening Purgatory is a very, very bad idea, Castiel.”

The angel took a step closer to the woman, and then his eyes widened. “You’re–” he started but suddenly cut off.

“I’m what?”

“Nothing.” He turned away from Olive. “I should go.”

“Wait,” Dean said. She nodded a bit as she realized what was coming next. “There’s one more thing you could do for me.”

~

Olive watched from down the hall as Dean spoke to Lisa and Ben for the last time. Tears filled her eyes; she’d always thought Lisa and Ben were the best things to happen to Dean in a long time. But this had to be done, for their safety more than anything. When he left the room, she followed him out of the hospital, keeping a distance behind so he could do what little talking he had to with Sam before she interrupted them. She overheard Dean telling his brother that if he ever mentioned the woman and her son again, he’d break his nose. They were about to drive off when Dean suddenly remembered Olive and looked over at the hospital. He saw her standing on the steps, watching him. Creepy, he thought. But we’ve dealt with creepier. So he motioned her over to the car.

She made her way to the Impala, bare feet slapping against asphalt as she came closer. Sam looked up when they didn’t immediately drive off, and he craned his neck forward to see who Dean was looking at. When he saw the drugged-up girl they’d almost hit, he said, “What the hell, Dean? I thought we left her in a hospital five states over.”

“Yeah, me too,” Dean said. “That’s why we’re taking her to Bobby to figure her out.”

At that moment Olive, who had heard everything they said, stopped at Dean’s open window and leaned forward. “So,” she said. “You guys gonna get me some clothes or what? I can’t very well meet the great Bobby Singer in a hospital gown.”

“Nice to meet you too,–?” Sam said.

“Olive.”

“Get in,” Dean said, motioning towards the back seat. “We’ll swing by a store to get you dressed before heading to Bobby’s.”

As she opened the back door and slid in, Sam turned in his seat and asked, “How’d you know we were gonna take you to Bobby?”

“I heard you two talking about it,” she answered, crossing her arms over her chest from the cool outdoors temperature. “Plus, some random girl suddenly appears in a hospital five states away from where you left her and she says she’s from another universe? Definitely needs some checking out.”

Sam frowned but nodded. Then he took off his coat and handed it to her. “Here, put this on until we can get you some real clothes.”

“Thanks,” she said, shrugging the large coat over her shoulders. It practically dwarfed her: she was able to pull her legs up on the seat, zip up the jacket, and hide her entire body inside it. And she wasn’t a thin stick of a person by any means, either. “You know, I never fully appreciated just how big of a guy you are until now Sam,” she said, giggling, as she retreated into her jacket-shell. Sam gave her a confused half-smile and turned back around as Dean started up the Impala and drove away from the hospital.

Fifteen minutes later, Olive was browsing through a clothing store, still wearing only her hospital gown and Sam’s jacket. She managed not to attract the attention of the store’s employees, certain they would kick her out if they saw her walking around barefoot. She retreated to the dressing room to pull on a pair of skinny jeans, a bright yellow v-neck, and, for laughs, a black and white plaid button-up. Then she took the tags to the counter along with two more pairs of skinny jeans, three more v-necks, a second plaid button-up, a pair of high-top Chuck Taylors, a leather jacket with a removeable hoodie attached, and a non-descript black backpack to hold it all. She swiped the credit card the Winchesters had given her and left with her new wardrobe, slipping the Chucks on as she left.

“All good?” Dean asked as she climbed into the back of the Impala.

“All good,” she answered, taking the tags off her new clothes, rolling them up neatly, and stuffing them into the backpack. “Thanks for the coat, Sam,” she said as she handed it back to him.

“Yeah, no problem.”

“Let’s get this show on the road, then.” Dean turned the key in the ignition and Baby rumbled to life.

“Damn, I love that sound,” Olive mumbled as she settled back into the leather seat for the long ride to Bobby’s.


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Castiel's opening Purgatory and all that jazz. Olive meets Balthazar.

As the Impala pulled up in front of Bobby’s house, Dean glanced in the rearview mirror at Olive, who was stretched out on the back seat, sleeping. “Hey,” he said. “Olive, wake up. We’re here.” The young woman stirred, raising a hand to rub at her eyes.

“We’re at Bobby’s already?” she asked groggily. “I didn’t think we’d been driving that long.”

“You slept the entire drive,” Sam said. “That messes with time in your head.”

“Yeah, I guess so.” Olive sat up and stretched. Then she opened the door and slid out of the car, grabbing her backpack as she went. As she straightened, she paused, taking in the sight of Bobby’s house and the Singer junkyard. “Wow,” she murmured.

“What?” Dean asked.

“It just– It just looks exactly like on the show.”

Dean sighed and said, “Don’t go all fangirl on us now. We’ve already had one Becky.”

“Oh believe me, I didn’t like Becky any more than you guys did. She was a creep and an idiot, most of the time.”

Sam asked tentatively, “So you’re not going to, you know, fondle me in my sleep?”

Olive laughed. “No, I’m not gonna do that. I wasn’t ever really a Sam girl, anyway.”

“A– Sam girl?”

“Yeah. There are Sam girls, there are Dean girls, there are Cas girls. Hell, there’s even Bobby girls and Crowley girls!”

“Wait,” Dean said. “Are you saying there are girls who have– have crushes or something on us?”

“Yeah. Most of the people who watch Supernatural are women.”

“So if you’re not a Sam girl, are you a Dean girl?” The elder brother had a little smirk on his face as he asked.

Olive looked over her shoulder at him as she walked up the steps to Bobby’s front door, one eyebrow raised. “In your dreams, Winchester.” Dean’s smirk disappeared quickly and she knocked on the front door.

After a moment Bobby opened it, the sentence he was going to say dying on his lips when he saw the short girl with dyed green hair standing on his porch in front of the boys. “Hello,” was all that came out.

“You’re Bobby Singer!” Olive said, holding out her hand for him to shake. “I’m Olive Thompson.”

“Nice to meet you, Olive.” He shook her hand, shooting the boys a glance. “Why don’t you come in and we can talk more comfortably.”

Bobby led the way to the kitchen, Dean saying, “This is the girl I was telling you about before…” He paused. “Before I got that phone call.”

“Yeah,” Sam said, steering away from the topic of Ben and Lisa. “The one we almost hit on the highway. Somehow she showed up five states over.”

“Weird,” Bobby said, looking her up and down. There was an awkward silence as they stood in the kitchen, then Olive spoke up.

“Look,” she said, crossing her arms. “I know you guys all suspect me of being something evil. So go ahead. Test me. I’m not a demon, or a shifter, or a ghost, or anything. I’m just me.”

“Alright.” He pulled out a silver knife and Olive stretched out her arm for him to cut. Her blood flowed red from the thin line he made and he handed her a handkerchief to press on it. Then he handed her a flask of holy water that she drank from. She grimaced because it was warm and stale and tasted like the metal of the flask, but no smoke came from her body as a result of drinking it. Bobby nodded. “Looks like you weren’t lying.”

“Yeah, I wasn’t lying. I’m just a girl from another universe who ended up here, somehow.”

“Another universe?” Bobby’s voice sounded incredulous.

“You remember when Sam and Dean came back with that story about having been to a universe where their lives were the plot a TV show?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, that’s where I’m from.”

The old hunter’s eyebrows rose until they disappeared under his hat. “That’s where you’re from?” Olive nodded. “And do you, by any chance, watch that television show?”

“Oh yeah. I’m completely caught up on it, actually. Big fan.”

“I just thought of something,” Sam interrupted. “What year was it when you were pulled here?”

The young woman was silent for a moment. It had been the end of September 2015. She remembered because her landlord had just kicked her out for not paying rent for two months. Then she realized that if she told Bobby and the Winchesters about the year she was pulled here and about how the show ran, they would want to know how the current situation ended. But then she remembered their obstinacy to try and avert fate anyway, so she decided she didn’t care if they knew she knew the future. Besides, the future might change now that she was here, right?

She realized they were all staring at her, waiting for her answer, so she took a deep breath and said, “2015.”

“2015?” Sam repeated.

“Yeah. And before you ask, the show aired during the same years as the events of the show. So Dean showed up at Sam’s apartment on Halloween of 2005, and the show first aired on September 13, 2005.”

“You mean to say,” Dean said. “That the show has been going on for ten years?” He looked confused and slightly upset. “Why the hell hasn’t it been cancelled yet?”

Olive looked down and put a hand to her forehead, shaking her head. “Oh my God. I can’t believe you just said that.” She sighed, then looked up at them again. “It was going to be cancelled after season five – which was the year you guys spent trying to avoid saying yes to Lucifer and Michael – but they got the okay to go on with it. Season eleven was going to air in a few days before I got pulled here.”

“But that means you know what’s going to happen,” Sam said. “You know how the Purgatory thing is going to end, don’t you?” She was silent and avoided their eyes.

“Olive,” Bobby said. “If you know something, you should let us know, right?”

“Not necessarily,” she countered. “Look, so maybe I do know how the future is gonna play out for you guys. I wouldn’t tell you, though. Hear me out,” she said, raising her hands to stop the protests coming from each mouth. “I wouldn’t tell you because I’m not certain that the future I’ve seen you guys live on TV is the future that’s going to happen now. Just me being here, talking to you, is changing everything. Who knows if it won’t change the outcome of big events in the future? So in my opinion, what’s best is that I keep my mouth shut and let things play out. Sure, if I think a certain piece of information will be helpful, I’ll give it to you. But don’t ask me to lay out your whole timelines up to 2015.”

There was silence for a moment, then Sam said, “Fair enough.”

“What do you know that you think you can tell us about this Purgatory thing, then?” Dean asked.

“Well, for one thing, Bobby should be getting a call from Eleanor Visyak sometime soon. Within the day, soon.”

“Why?”

“You’ll see.” The three men sighed. “Look, I’m sorry, okay? But I’m not gonna do major spoilers.”

“Fine,” Dean said, angry.

Just then one of Bobby’s many phones rang. “Hello?” he said as he held the receiver to his ear. “Ellie? Are you alright?” He was silent, then he jotted down an address. “We’ll be there as soon as we can.” He put the phone down and turned to us. “We gotta go. Now. Eleanor has something she needs to tell us.” They all nodded and headed back outside.

~

As they pulled up to the building where Ellie had said to meet her, Dean turned to Olive and handed her a sawed off shotgun. “Here,” he said. “You take this and stand by the car. If you see anything demonic coming, shoot it.”

“I don’t know how to use a gun!” she said. “I’m a fangirl, not a hunter. I’ve never held one of these in my life.”

Dean sighed, then traded her the demon knife for the shotgun. “You know how to use one of these, I hope?”

“You stick them with the pointy end.” She restrained a giggle as she referenced another TV show she watched.

“Yeah, that’s what you do. Now just stand by the car and keep watch, alright?”

“Got it.” They got out of the car and Olive leaned casually against the Impala’s side, her arms crossed over her chest, one hand clutching the knife beneath her jacket. She watched as Bobby and the boys found Ellie. Strange, she thought. Wasn’t this a flashback or something on the show? She looked down, trying to remember. She was oblivious to the fact that Castiel appeared and talked to Dean briefly. Suddenly she remembered, and as she looked up, Castiel disappeared, then reappeared behind Sam and put his fingers to the hunter’s temple. “Castiel, no!” she shouted, but it was too late. The younger Winchester crumpled and Castiel disappeared again.

Dean shook Sam’s shoulder but he didn’t open his eyes, so Dean and Bobby carried Sam back to the Impala and put him in the back seat. “What happened to him?” Dean asked Olive.

“Castiel broke down the wall in Sam’s mind,” she answered softly. “He’s dreaming, mostly. But he’ll have to reconcile parts of himself to wake up again.”

“So what, he’s just roaming around in his own head?”

“Basically.”

“Can we do anything to fix him?” Bobby asked.

“No. He has to get through this himself. That’s the only way he’ll wake up.”

Dean turned and yelled “Dammit!” Then they got back in the car and drove to Bobby’s.

~

Dean paced up and down the panic room and Olive leaned against the wall. Sam was lying still as a stone on the bed. Bobby walked in, bottle of whiskey in hand, and asked, “Anything?”

“I can’t just sit here, Bobby,” Dean said. “I’ve got to help him.”

“Dean.”

“You know, dreamscape his noggin. Something.”

Olive sighed and tuned them out, knowing the basics of what they were going to say. Dean would demand that Bobby find Castiel and find a way to get to him. But when Dean suddenly said her name, she looked up, confused. “What?” she asked.

“You know where Castiel is, don’t you?” the elder Winchester asked.

“No,” she replied, shaking her head. “I don’t know his exact location. I know he’s in a lab or something, some sort of abandoned research facility in the middle of nowhere. But I don’t know where that nowhere is.”

“If you’re lying–”

“Look, I want Sam’s mind back the way it was too. And if I remembered where that stupid lab is, I would tell you. But I don’t. You’ll have to wait for Balthazar to get here.”

“Yeah, like he’s gonna show.” She gave him an exasperated look, one eyebrow raised. “Wait, he is gonna show?”

“Eventually. I don’t know when but he will. And he’ll tell you where Castiel is.”

Dean nodded, relieved for a moment. Olive pushed off the wall and left the panic room, heading upstairs for a drink. Bobby followed her. Once they were in the kitchen, Bobby held the refrigerator door shut and asked, “Is Sam going to be okay?”

She sighed, crossing her arms and leaning against the counter. “Bobby–”

“You tell me now, Olive Thompson, and you tell me straight or else I will lock your ass in a closet until we get all this figured out and I can deal with you properly.”

Another sigh left her lips but she looked sad now, her shoulders hunched a bit. “Yeah, Bobby,” she said. “He’ll be okay. Eventually.”

“Eventually? What the hell does that mean?”

“It means Sam’s going to go through some shit because of what Cas did. And there will be a point when it looks like there’s no hope for Sam getting better. But he will. I promise.” As she spoke, she looked up, right into Bobby’s eyes, and he knew she was telling the truth because of the sadness hidden behind the stark grey of her eyes.

He nodded and opened the fridge door. “Good,” he said. He grabbed two beers and handed one to her. She took it with a grateful smile. “You know, if you’re sticking around, we ought to teach you how to use a gun.”

She was about to respond when Balthazar appeared behind Bobby and said, “I’ve got news.”

“You know where Castiel is?” Bobby asked, turning to him.

“Yes.”

“Let’s go tell Dean.” Bobby walked past Balthazar to the basement, but the angel held back a moment to glance quizzically at Olive.

“I’ve never seen you before,” he said. Then he smiled and said, “Pity. You’re a looker.”

“Oh shut up, Balthazar,” she retorted. “Go downstairs and tell Dean where to find that stupid angel. We can talk later.” He did as he was told and followed Bobby down. Olive opened her beer and had taken a couple swigs before realizing that no, they couldn’t talk later. Cas was going to kill him. She dashed to the basement, his name on her lips just as she saw him disappear after giving Dean a piece of paper with an address on it. “Dammit,” she mumbled to herself. She continued on though, approaching Dean and Bobby as they discussed their plan.

“Olive,” Dean said, seeing her. “You coming with?”

“I’m useless in a fight,” she said, an idea coming to her as she spoke. “I can’t use a gun or handle a knife without hurting myself. You two go, and when Sam wakes up, I’ll bring him to you. He’ll be more useful than I will be.”

Dean nodded once. “Alright.” They moved around the panic room, packing holy water and angel blades. Dean knelt down beside his brother one last time.

“Time’s up, Dean,” Bobby said.

“Yeah, just a second.” Dean places a gun next to Sam’s pillow. “Alright, Olive here knows where we’re going. You get your lazy ass out of bed and come and meet us.” He paused, voice hitching. “Sammy, please.” Olive put a hand on his shoulder to try to convey to him, somehow, that it would be alright. Then he stood and left with Bobby, pausing only to give the girl an intense stare and say, “As soon as he is awake, you come after us.”

“I know, Dean,” she replied with a nod. He nodded once and left. She looked down at Sam, whispered, “I’ll be right back,” and then made her way upstairs. Waiting until she heard the familiar rumble of the Impala fade away into the distance, she went outside and stood in the middle of the junkyard. “Balthazar,” she prayed. She hoped to catch him and get him away from Castiel in time. “Balthazar, we really need you.” She waited. “Come on, it’s me, the pretty one you’d never seen before?” As the seconds ticked by, she knew he was closer and closer to being killed by Castiel.

In fact, in the lab miles away in Kansas, Castiel had just summoned Balthazar to him. They talked about the traitor in the ranks, and Balthazar attempted to come off confused and worried, but Castiel wasn’t buying it. “First Sam and Dean,” the blue-eyed angel said with a sigh. “And now this. I’m doing my best in impossible circumstances. My friends, they abandon me, plot against me. It’s difficult to understand.”

In the junkyard, Olive was growing worried and desperate. One last time she called out, screaming his name. “Balthazar, come here now!”

Balthazar shifted anxiously. “Well you’ve–” And in a blink he was gone, dragged out of Castiel’s presence by the screams of a girl from another universe. Castiel looked around, confused, then disappeared as well to find the angel he knew had betrayed him.

Olive was standing, heartbroken, thinking she’d failed and Balthazar had died anyway, when his voice came from behind her. “How in seven hells did you do that?” he asked.

She whipped around, her eyes wide in disbelief. “It worked?” she said, breathless. “You heard my prayers?”

“I didn’t hear any prayers, little lady. I was talking to Castiel when suddenly I found myself here.”

That’s when Cas appeared as well. Olive stood between the two angels, looking back and forth at them. “Olive?” Cas said with a tilt of his head.

“So you two have met?” Balthazar asked.

“Yesterday. She attacked me in a hospital.”

“I barely punched you,” the short young woman said indignantly. “And for the record, my hands still ache.”

“What is inexplicable,” Castiel continued, ignoring her. “Is how her punches managed to stagger me when even Sam and Dean’s do not.”

“Is she a demon?” the other angel asked.

“She is standing right here, and no, I’m not a demon. Bobby and the boys already tested me. I’m just a human.”

“Just a human wouldn’t have unbroken hands after punching an angel, dear.”

“I’m… tougher than I look.”

Castiel squinted and turned his head to the side, studying her. “Yes, but no. You are tougher than you look, but it’s not because of some human adrenaline rush. You’re not human, Olive.”

“Excuse me?”

“Balthazar, do you see it?”

Balthazar also looked closely at Olive before he exclaimed, “My God.”

“What? What do you see?” She put her hands on her hips. “Tell me now or so help me–”

“You’ll send us back to heaven?” There was a tone of laughter in Balthazar’s voice but both angels looked deadly serious as they stared at her.

“Olive, you are an angel.” Castiel said.

There was stunned silence as she stood there with her mouth hanging open. Then she said, “You’re kidding.”

“I am not.”

“But I would know! I would know if I was an angel!” She paused. “Wouldn’t I?”

“Perhaps not in your circumstances. You came over from an alternate universe where you were human. If you still believed that you were human, then the signs that you are angel would slip under your notice.”

“She’s not just any angel, Castiel,” Balthazar said softly. “Can you see the outlines of her wings?”

“Yes.”

“What about my wings?”

“You have six of them.” Balthazar gave her a strange, almost admiring look. “That means you’re an archangel.”

“But that’s–”

Suddenly Cas went stiff and he pressed a finger to his temple. “Dean Winchester is almost to the lab. I have to go.” He paused and glared at Balthazar. “I was going to kill you, brother. I was interrupted by your disappearance, and now that I am here I am reluctant. But if I ever see you again, or you do anything to oppose me again, I will kill you then.”

Balthazar’s jaw clenched and the blue-eyed angel disappeared. Olive heaved a sigh of relief. “Well,” she said. “Even though that didn’t go exactly how I planned, I’m glad I got you out alive.”

The other angel looked at her. “Alternate universe?” he asked.

She sighed. “Why don’t you come inside and we’ll have a glass of whiskey while I explain?”


	4. Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Purgatory shit. Cas is a dick for most of season six. Olive might be an angel?

Olive leaned in the doorway to the panic room, watching Sam as he laid, eyes closed, on the thin mattress in the middle. “So you were a fangirl, now you’re an angel, hmm?” Balthazar said, taking a sip from the glass of whiskey she’d poured him.

“Well, I still am a fangirl,” she replied, looking away from Sam. “I don’t know about the angel thing. I mean, you’d think I would know, right?”

“Maybe not.” Balthazar stood and came closer. “Maybe you’re too focused on being human to realize that you’re an angel.”

“So you’re saying I have to believe it to be it?”

“In a way.” He put his chin in his hand, looking at her thoughtfully. “Or maybe it’s more of a mental block than anything else. A mental block you’ll have to break to fully harness your powers as an archangel.”

“Okay wait.” Olive held up a hand. “One, the result of breaking down barriers in someone’s mind is lying comatose right over there. And two, how can I even be an archangel? I mean, normal angel, sure, that’s a possibility. But from what I know, there were only ever four archangels: Michael, Lucifer, Raphael, and Gabriel. One’s dead, two are locked in the Cage, and the fourth is currently battling Castiel for control of heaven. There’s no way I’m an archangel.”

“Look, I’m just trying to help you here. If things go wrong and Castiel does manage to open Purgatory and take in all those souls, don’t you think the Winchesters could use another angel on their side?” She nodded grudgingly. “And wouldn’t it be even better if it were an archangel? I’m assuming you realize just how powerful they are compared to other angels, since you watched the show so much.”

“Yes, I know.”

“So why not try to focus your energy on being an angel instead of locking yourself away as a human and be of some use around here?”

Olive opened her mouth to speak but was interrupted by Sam suddenly thrashing around on the bed. She rushed over to him and moved the gun away from him, placing a hand on his chest to hold him down. “Sam, you’re alright,” she said. “Work through it Sam. You’ll be fine.” Balthazar watched from the doorway as Sam gradually calmed down, though his breathing was still heavy. Then his eyes flew open and he sat up quickly. “Woah, Sammy,” Olive said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Take it slow.”

“Olive?” he asked, turning to her.

“Yeah.”

He looked around. “Where’s Dean and Bobby?”

“They’re after Castiel. Balthazar came through and told them where he is. Told me, too, and that’s where we’re gonna go now.” Sam was swinging his legs off the bed before she was even done speaking and he stood quickly. He took one step but swayed and she hurried to his side to support him. “Like I said, take it easy. You just got all your soulless memories and Cage memories back. Not fun.”

“They put that on the show?” he asked, allowing one arm to drape over her shoulders, and she led the way from the panic room, grabbing the pistol Dean had left as she went.

“Yeah. Here.” She handed him the gun. “You may have demons running around in your head now, but you’re still better with that thing than I will ever be. So I’ll drive and you’ll shoot. Got it?”

Sam nodded. “Balthazar coming with us?”

“No, I don’t think so,” the angel said, setting down his glass. “Castiel tried to kill me once already, I don’t fancy another go.” He looked at Olive. “When you make up your mind about the archangel thing, I’ll be in Sicily.” And with that he disappeared.

“Archangel thing?” Sam asked as they made their way slowly but surely upstairs and out to Bobby’s car.

“Long story,” Olive answered, getting him into the passenger’s seat and then rushing around to the driver’s side. “Easiest way to explain it: you know how that one angel followed you through and hunted you down?” Sam nodded as she started the car and peeled out of the driveway, heading for Kansas. “And he didn’t have any of his angel powers left? Well, apparently, that can happen in reverse.”

He was silent as he processed that. “So you’re… an angel?”

“Apparently I’m not just an angel. I’m an archangel.”

“How do you know?”

“Well, Castiel and Balthazar both said they could see the outlines of my wings. Three pairs of wings, apparently, which means I’m an archangel.” Sam just looked at her, confused. “Trust me, I don’t quite get it either. But Balthazar thinks I can’t use any angel powers because I’m focusing too much on being human still. That I still believe I’m human and so I can’t fully utilize my powers until I belive I’m an angel.”

“Weird,” Sam said.

“I know.” Just then Sam groaned and pressed his hands to his head. “Easy Sam,” she said, looking over with concern. “Just ride them out. You’ll get through it.”

“Yeah, sure,” he said, before remembering she would know. “I will?”

“Yeah. You just gotta be strong. I know the tortured version of yourself that you saw in there said you weren’t strong enough, but I know you are.” Sam smiled a bit and Olive pressed down harder on the gas pedal, zooming down the highway to get to Kansas as soon as possible.

~

Sam led the way into the building when they get there, passing the flipped and damaged Impala on their way in. Olive was still mulling over the idea of being an archangel, considering the benefits of each side, angel and human. But when they got to the hallway outside the lab, they could already tell they were too late to stop Castiel from opening Purgatory. They peered through the open doorway, the angel’s back to them.

“Oh no, they belong with me,” Castiel said to Dean about the souls he’d taken.

“No, Cas, it’s–it–it’s scrambling your brain,” Dean pleaded.

“No, I’m not finished yet.” Sam began to sneak into the room, quietly heading for the angel blade Raphael had dropped. “Raphael had many followers, and I must punish them all severely.”

“Listen to me. Listen, I know there’s a lot of bad water under the bridge, but we were family once. I’d have died for you. I almost did a few times.” Olive lost focus on Dean’s words as she watched Sam creep closer and closer to the angel blade. As she crouched there in the hallway, she was glad she had decided not to “unleash” her angel powers yet, because really, what would they have been able to do? Castiel, with the power of those souls, had just obliterated Raphael, the last original archangel. So even if Olive was one, it wouldn’t help her, and maybe, if she stayed human for a while, God!Cas wouldn’t kill her.

Sam had the blade now. “You’re not my family, Dean,” Castiel said, striking one of the deepest blows to the eldest Winchester’s heart that he ever could. “I have no family.” At that moment, Sam stood up and stabbed the former angel right in the back, but nothing happened. Castiel just pulled the blade out, blood-free, and set it down. “I’m glad you made it, Sam,” he said. “But the angel blade won’t work, because I’m not an angel any more. I’m your new God. A better one. So you will bow down and profess your love unto me, your Lord. Or I shall destroy you.”

Olive watched as Bobby knelt, his face blank but his eyes betraying his fear. Sam and Dean made to follow suit but Castiel stopped them. “What’s the point if you don’t mean it? You fear me. Not love, not respect, just fear.”

“Cas…” Sam said behind him.

“Sam, you have nothing to say to me; you stabbed me in the back.”

A buzzing started in Olive’s ears and it grew until it completely blocked out the sounds of the conversation. Her eyes started watering, and she turned away from the sight of this new Castiel, this new “God” that was so familiar and yet so much different. She squeezed her eyes shut, crouched down, and wrapped her arms around her head, willing herself not to cry for the poor angel who had been pushed to such extremes that he lost himself when he succeeded.

“I hope for your sake this is the last you see me,” Castiel said, turning away from the men. He cast a curious glance in the direction of the hall where Olive was crouched before disappearing.

Sam, Dean, and Bobby exchanged glances. That’s when Dean noticed Sam’s nose was bleeding. “Sam, you okay?” he asked, concern evident in his voice. Sam staggered and fell, cutting his hand on broken glass on the floor. Dean hurried to his side, helping his brother stand and walk out of the lab room. Sam muttered something as the made to leave the way Dean and Bobby had come in. “What?” Dean asked.

“Olive,” Sam said, a little louder. “Why isn’t Olive coming?”

Dean looked at Bobby, who nodded and said, “I’ll find the girl. You get Sam to whatever car they drove here.” Dean nodded and half-carried, half-led his brother outside. Bobby headed for the hallway he’d seen Sam come from, hoping Olive hadn’t wandered off anywhere. He breathed a small sigh of relief when he saw her crouched against the wall, but immediately frowned when he noticed how tense and frightened she seemed. “Hey, sister,” he said, kneeling down beside her. “What’s up with you?” When she didn’t answer, he reached out and gently pried her hands away from her head. “Olive.”

Her eyes looked up at the grizzled hunter, full of sorrow and pain. “Castiel,” she whispered. “Castiel is gone.”

“Yeah, that son of a bitch is gone. Now come on, we’ve got to get outta here, too.”

“No, I mean, from inside. The old Castiel, the innocent angel who only wanted to do the right thing. That Castiel is gone, and he will never come back.”

“Well, how about we cry about it somewhere safer, alright?” Olive couldn’t even bring herself to nod, but she allowed Bobby to haul her to her feet and lead her out of the building.


	5. Chapter Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Olive embraces her angel-ness.

It was early in the morning when they finally made it back to Bobby’s after the events at the lab. Olive had retreated to a spare bedroom upstairs, not wanting to have to explain her breakdown. She locked the door, slipped off her shoes and jacket, and collapsed onto the bed, burying her face in the sheets. They smelled musty and a little bit like cedar, and she breathed them in, taking comfort in the feeling of security it gave her. However, no matter how hard she tried to rest and forget everything crazy that had happened in the last few day, it all came back to her in bits and pieces. The lights of the Impala as it bore down on her, her encounter with Castiel in the hospital, buying clothes with a phony card at a department store, the revelation that she was an archangel trapped in a human’s mindset, the events at the lab.

Olive rolled over onto her back, sighing. She just wished she could go home. Then it hit her: she could. There was a spell that could send her back to her world. She just had to remember what the ingredients were and what the symbol was. She squeezed her eyes shut, willing her memory to be crystal clear just this once. After a few moments of desperately trying to recall the episode called “The French Mistake”, she gave up with a sigh. She couldn’t remember it. She sat up, intending to go down to ask the boys if they remembered the spell, but chances were, they didn’t. They had never wanted to go back to that world, so they probably forgot the spell as quickly as they learned it. And she didn’t want to bother them with researching it, not when Sam was struggling with his memories of hell and Dean was struggling with supporting Sam through that. No, she didn’t want to ask any favors of the Winchesters right now.

Which left only one alternative. Balthazar. He had told her he was going to be in Sicily, in case she wanted to talk after she figured out “the angel thing”. And he was the one who had done the spell in the first place, so he should still know it and possibly have the necessary ingredients for it. But she had to get to Sicily first. Plane? No, she didn’t have the money and she wasn’t going to ask for a card from the guys. She sighed as she realized she was going to have to trigger the “angel within” to be able to see Balthazar. And it’s not like she’d stay an angel once she was back where she belonged. She’d be back to being little old Olive Thompson. She could hear her landlord’s voice mocking her in the back of her head but she pushed away. She needed to be determined to do this or she’d never find a way home. If you can even call Winterville home any more.

Ignoring the bitter voice in her head, Olive laid back down and shut her eyes, concentrating on everything that made her human. And slowly, slowly, she stripped it away and remade it, telling herself, You are an angel now. An archangel. You are one of the most powerful beings in the universe. And slowly, slowly, she began to believe it. A bright white light began to pulse out of her body, illuminating the room and creating stark shadows on the walls where the furniture got in the way. She could feel the power beginning to fill her, building and building and building until she could contain it no longer and it burst out of her. It took her a moment to register that the scream she’d been hearing was her own voice, and as soon as she realized that, she stopped.

Everything was still. Olive sat up and opened her eyes. Everything was new. She could identify a thousand different colors in everything she saw, and she could even see through things if she wanted to. Her ears could hear the mice under the floorboards and feet running up the stairs and the whoosh of air over wings as, outside, a hawk looked for prey. The smell of must and cedar was stronger than ever, accompanied by the smell of the stain used on the wooden bed frame and mothballs in the closet. Every sense was heightened, intensified a thousand times over. It’s like I’m a superhero, she thought, and then laughed.

That’s when the door burst open. “Olive?” Dean asked. His face was part worried, part angry, and he held the demon blade in his hand.

“Oh,” the woman-turned-angel replied. “Hi Dean.”

“Everything okay?” He paused and looked around the room. “You were screaming.”

“Oh, yeah, everything’s great.” She smiled. “More than great, actually. I’m fully an angel now.” Incomprehension filled Dean’s eyes, and Olive remembered he hadn’t been there when Balthazar and Castiel had discovered her true self. “Right. You don’t know. Here.” One moment, she was sitting cross-legged on the bed; the next, she was standing beside Dean, two fingers pressed to his temple.

Dean jerked away, but not before she’d been able to telepathically convey to him everything that the angels had said about her and her state of being. “Woah dude,” Dean said. “Rule number one as an angel when you’re around us: no mind games without permission. Alright?”

“Yeah, sure,” she said, abashed. “Sorry. It’s just easier and faster than talking.”

“Okay.” There was an awkward silence as he processed all the information that she had just given him. “So you’re an archangel?” he eventually asked.

“Apparently. I mean, Castiel and Balthazar said they saw three sets of wings, so I guess…” As she was talking, Olive had turned her head, distracted by something at the edge of her vision. It was an edge of a wing, the feathers a deep, chocolate brown. “Woah,” she breathed. She experimented, trying to discover what muscles moved her wings, and with a slight whisper of air over feathers, they were wrapped around and brought to the front so she could see them. “Dean can you see these?” she asked with a smile. Light glanced off something to her left and she noticed a mirror on the wall. She approached it, hoping to get a better view. Her breath hitched when she saw herself in the mirror. Her wings, all six of them, were huge, brushing against the ceiling and the floor at the same time. Suddenly she felt trapped, confined within the small room, and a longing to be outside to stretch her wings filled her. She took a step away from the mirror, intending to walk downstairs and get out of the house.

The next second, her bare foot connected not with the hardwood floorboards in the room but with the uneven gravel of the junkyard and she stumbled a bit. Olive smiled widely and said, “Wow. So awesome.” Then she flexed, spreading her wings to their full length, and craned her head around to look at them. They were brown, yes, but in the sunlight many different colors showed up in individual feathers. She laughed incredulously as she saw all the colors she’d ever dyed her hair represented in her wings, the large majority of non-brown feathers being the electric blue her hair currently was. She had to tell the others about this. She turned and started running back to the house, but once again her angel side kicked in and she transported immediately to the kitchen, still running. She tried to stop but her momentum carried her further and she tripped, rolling into the cabinets and smashing them.

“Oh God, I am so sorry,” she said after recovering, wishing she knew how to fix cabinets, and like that they were as good as new. “Wow, okay, never mind.” Olive looked up from the floor to see Dean frozen on the stairs, Bobby standing in his study, and Sam sitting at the kitchen table. They were all staring at her.

“Care to explain yourself?” Bobby asked, breaking the silence.

“Oh. Yeah, I’m an archangel.”

“Come again?”

“An archangel.”

“Bobby,” Dean took over. “When Sam and I went through, an angel followed us, but when he got over there he had none of his powers. So, it apparently works backwards too. A normal human there becomes an angel here, in this case.”

“That’s all fine and dandy but she wasn’t showing any signs of mojo before.”

“Because I still believed that I was fully human,” Olive said. “But Balthazar thought that if I accepted that I was angel now and let go of my human-ness, my angel side would completely kick in. So I did a few minutes ago.”

“That’s why she was screaming,” Dean interjected.

“So it hurt?” Sam asked.

“No, it didn’t hurt,” she replied. “There was just so much power flowing through me. It took me a while to realize that I was the one screaming.”

“Huh.”

There was awkward silence for a moment until Olive spoke again. “Well, I need to get a better handle on these powers, obviously,” she motioned to the cabinets. “So I’m going to go to the only angel I know will help me.” She knew she was lying, knew she was going to try to go back to her world, but for some reason she couldn’t bring herself to tell them the truth. “Balthazar. Don’t know how long I’ll be gone but don’t wait for me or anything. I’ll see you guys later.” And with that she vanished, appeared in her room for a moment to grab her shoes, jacket, and backpack of clothes, and then vanished again.

The boys and Bobby sat in shocked silence for a while, then Bobby said, “Well, I hope she figures out what she’s doing, and fast. I’m not gonna lie. It’d be nice to have an archangel on our side for once.”

“Yeah, but Olive?” Dean said. “She doesn’t seem like the fighting type.”

“I don’t know,” Sam said, shrugging. “I think there’s more to Olive than we’ve seen. I don’t know what it is, but she seems… deeper, I guess? Like she’s seen some bad shit in her life too and knows how to fight it.”

“Well, I hope so, because if she comes back she’s gonna see some bad shit in this life.”


	6. Chapter Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Olive and Balthazar hang out together a lot in Italy. This is the chapter with self-harm, just fyi.

On the other side of the world, Balthazar leaned against a balcony, gazing out at the beautiful blue vastness of the Mediterranean Sea in the evening. As he swirled his glass of wine, breathing in the smell of it, Olive appeared suddenly, standing on the rail of the balcony. “Shit,” she said as she lost her balance and fell backwards towards the sea, disappearing in a blink and reappearing on the balcony itself behind Balthazar. “Okay,” she said, letting out a breath of relief. “Hey, Balthazar.” That’s when she noticed his wings. “I can see your wings?” There were only two, and slightly smaller than hers, but they were a beautiful light brown color.

“Olive,” he said, turning to her. “I see you’ve fully embraced your new identity as an archangel. And yes, that means you can see my wings, just as I can see yours.”

“Sweet. Yeah, I decided to be an angel earlier today.” She paused and looked around. “I think.”

“But you still haven’t learned how to use all your powers, have you?”

“Well, I have discovered that just thinking about being someplace can send me there, and thinking about fixing something can fix it.”

“That’s very rudimentary, but yes, true enough. However, you should know what time it is here compared to the time where you came from. You’re still thinking a little bit like a human, dear.”

“What do you mean?”

Balthazar set down his glass of wine on an ornate table and stepped closer to her. He raised his hands, putting them near her head, pausing to ask, “May I help you see?”

“Sure,” she said, shrugging. He nodded and placed his hands on her temples, closing his eyes. There was a strange itching at the back of her skull, and suddenly her eyes lit up from within, white light pouring out of them. Then Balthazar let go and stepped away.

“Now tell me,” he said. “Is it different?”

Olive spun around in a circle slowly, taking it all in. “I can hear,” she said. “I can hear everything. I can hear a little girl praying for her dog in Australia, and I can hear an old man in Iceland complaining about the TV channels he gets.” She laughed and closed her eyes. “And I can see everything. I see the little girl, and the old man, and the dog, and the TV he’s watching.”

“And what do you know?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, what is 2,506,333 times 92,071?”

“230,760,585,643” she answered without a moment’s thought. Her eyes flew open in disbelief. “Woah.”

“And which of the angels was tasked with guarding the Garden of Eden after the fall of man?”

“Uriel.” She paused. “Wait, really? That dick of an angel was supposed to guard Eden?”

“You know why.”

“Because humans were never to enter again, and he was a specialist, created for destruction.”

“Exactly. And this knowledge is just a taste of everything you know now. You are the last free, living archangel on Earth. It’s an honor that you don’t want to smite me.”

She smiled at him. “Smite you? You were always one of my favorite characters, of course I don’t want to smite you.” Then her smile faded as she remembered why she’d woken her angel side.

“What is it?” Balthazar asked.

“I need a moment to think,” she said, sitting down on a chair that appeared from nowhere.

Olive was an archangel. She knew so much, heard and saw so much, had so much power. And if she stayed here, she could use it for good. But when her thoughts turned to that, her new angel mind told her that all the other angels would most likely want her to take charge in heaven since she was an archangel. And she knew immediately that she wouldn’t be able to handle that. To run heaven and control the angels? She wasn’t that kind of person. She’d studied architecture and graphic design in college, for heaven’s sake! She was an artist, not a leader.

She shook her head. She had to go back. She didn’t belong here, anyway, and she probably never would. Sure, she knew the Winchesters would try to make her feel at home, maybe even come to call her family if she stuck around and helped them out and didn’t betray them. And the angels would certainly say she belonged. But that didn’t change the fact that she knew in her heart that the other world was really her home.

So, with a sigh, she looked up at Balthazar. For a moment, Olive only stared at him, taking in every detail of his face and wings, wanting to be able to remember what he looked like when she got back. And then she stood and said, “I need you to tell me the spell to cross between worlds.”

“You want to go back?” the older angel asked, incredulous. “After what you’ve become?”

“Yes, I do. I don’t belong here, I belong there.”

“But look at yourself! You are an archangel!”

“I know, Balthazar!” Her anger lashed out, sending a wave of energy that blew the circuits in the house connected to the balcony. Sparks flew from the light fixtures as she calmed herself. “I know. But I shouldn’t be. And I’ve already changed things and made a difference. I saved your life, didn’t I?”

“And I am eternally grateful for that. I think you can do more like that if you stay.”

She sighed and looked away, her hands on her hips. “I’m not going to argue this with you. I need to go home, so give me the spell.” Balthazar crossed his arms. “I saved your life and you owe me.” He sighed, then listed off the ingredients for the spell and showed her what the symbol was.

A few minutes later, Olive was drawing the symbol on a bottom-floor window, ignoring Balthazar pacing behind her. When she was finished, she stood and wiped her hands on a towel, then turned to him. Before she could speak, though, he said, “I really don’t think you should go.”

“I have to,” she said, all anger gone. She smiled at him sadly. “It was nice to meet you, Balthazar.”

“The pleasure was mine.” And with that, she turned and jumped through the window. She hit the ground rolling, standing with a smile. But when she turned to look back at the broken window, she saw Balthazar standing there on the other side, as confused as she was.

“It didn’t work?” she wondered aloud.

“Seems that way,” Balthazar responded.

“But why? Why didn’t it work? I had all the right ingredients, I drew the symbol perfectly.”

He shook his head. She zapped back inside, sitting down on the floor as she rewound the whole process, looking for mistakes. “What do you remember of that night, exactly?” he asked. “Maybe you’ll discover something if you look at that again.”

Olive nodded, closing her eyes. It was like all her memories had been uploaded, perfect and in high definition, and she picked out that last night in the bar. As she recalled walking along the highway alone, she came to the realization that she had overdosed. She sucked in her breath as all the pain that the drugs had blocked out came back to her and she realized that her body had been shutting down as she walked in the freezing cold of an unexpected September snowstorm.

“I was high,” she murmured. Balthazar crouched down next to her. “I was high, and I overdosed. I was so close to dying, so close.” She gasped, remembering that the lights of the Impala bearing down on her was reflected in her real life, when another car had run her down. Tears slipped down her face as she said, “I would have died of the overdose and the cold if the car hadn’t hit me.” A sob racked her body and she opened her eyes. “I can’t go back because in my world, I’m dead. I mean, I was in pretty bad shape when the Winchesters found me. And now I know that the only reason I lived is because I had become an angel when crossing over. Oh God.” She buried her face in her hands and brought her knees up to her chest, letting the realization take her over.

I shouldn’t be alive, she thought to herself. I should be dead in another world, frozen and mangled on a road. When she felt Balthazar put his hand on her shoulder, she uncurled and grabbed at his shirt, pulling him close and burying her face in his chest as she sobbed. For a moment he looked stunned, as if he didn’t know what to do with a crying woman. But then he relaxed and tentatively wrapped his arms around her in an attempt to comfort her.

~

After that realization, Olive seemed to deflate on the inside. She didn’t feel anything except emptiness. She didn’t even feel sad any more.

On the outside, though, she put on a show for Balthazar, whom she had decided to stay with. She would laugh and joke and talk with him, letting him take her to exotic locales and show her the wonders of the world. She even let him into her bed, discovering just how sensitive angel wings were when touched in just the right places.

But each night she made an excuse for time to herself and she would leave him. Every night, she would transport herself to the middle of Antarctica and she would sit in the snow and the ice and take out a knife and cut herself. Cut so deep and so wide and in so many places that the blood would run out of her body and make a circle around her until it looked like she was sitting in a lake of blood. And she would sit there and let the snow and ice blow into the wounds and sting her flesh until she was numb all over and then, and only then, would she heal herself, stand, and transport back to Sicily and Balthazar and pretend that everything was alright.

~

One day, when in other parts of the world Dean was preparing the Impala for a paint job and Castiel was telling Crowley how Hell was going to be run from then on, Olive rolled off Balthazar, panting. “Top ten,” she said, breathless.

“Definitely,” he replied, propping himself up on an elbow to look at her. “Maybe even top five.”

“Mm, you’re forgetting the time on top of Mount Everest again.”

“No, I counted that one. Still think this makes top five.”

She laughed. “Whatever you say.” She snuggled up to him, wrapping her arms around his torso and closing her eyes. As they lay there, Balthazar’s face changed from that sleepy sort of post-sex happiness to a worried look. Eventually, whatever was on his mind made him speak.

“Olive?” he asked.

“Mm?”

“Did you really think I wouldn’t notice?”

She stiffened almost imperceptibly but kept her eyes closed. “Notice what?”

“Notice that your skin is always freezing when you come back from wherever it is you retreat to. Notice the tiniest spots of blood that you miss when cleaning your clothes. Notice the scars you never fully healed from when you were a human.” She opened her eyes, a warning hidden behind their soft greyness. He ignored it. “Do you know what those little things tell me? It tells me that you used to self-harm, when you were human, and it tells me that you’ve started again when I’m not watching.”

She sighed and let go of him, sitting up and running a hand through her hair, which was showing its true auburn color at the roots now. “Balthazar–”

He sat up quickly. “Why, Olive?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Olive, please.”

“No!” She stood, snapping her fingers to clothe herself again. “If you’re going to pry into my personal life, you can leave.” She made to walk out of the room but he was suddenly there, clothed as well, blocking her way.

Grabbing her hands to keep her from zapping away without him, he said, “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me why you cut yourself as a human and why you’re cutting yourself now.”

She squirmed, trying to get her hands free from his grip, but he was determined and had put all his strength into the hold. After a few moments she stilled and sighed, zapping them back to sit on the bed. She nodded. “Fine. I’ll tell you.” Balthazar moved his grip from Olive’s wrists to her hands, intertwining their fingers. Slowly, she began, “I never had an easy life in the other world. My dad died in a car wreck while he was on the phone with me. I was seven, and that’s when it started. I blamed myself for his wreck. I distracted him. My mom took me to doctors and got me meds but nothing worked. Then her new husband started… using me. He sexually abused me for three years before my mother caught him and he was put in jail.”

Olive took a deep breath and lowered her head, Balthazar rubbing his thumbs in circles on the back of her hands, encouraging her to continue. “I felt dirty because of what I’d let him do, because I liked what he did to me, because I wanted more. I began to cut myself because I believed that I should be punished for my father’s death and for the way I felt about my step-father. And I believed the purity of my blood was the only thing that could wash away the dirtiness of my wrongs. In high school I fell in with a crowd that connected me with drugs, and my sophomore year I lost my virginity to the boy who introduced me to cocaine.”

She sighed again and looked up at him. Seeing no disgust on his face, she continued. “I lost my only long-term boyfriend to a drug overdose and my mother to a stroke. My step-father was released on parole and was looking for me, so I ran. I ran to the farthest corner I knew of and I hid. I sold my body to men so I could pay rent and buy drugs. And in between highs and men, I would cut myself, trying to atone for every wrong thing I’d ever done. But every day the list got longer and every day the cuts meant less.”

She was silent for a long while, until he said, “And now?”

“And now I feel empty, worthless, but above it all I feel pain. Pain because I know I should be dead, I’m supposed to be dead, but I’m not because of some freak accident. So I cut myself deep, bleed myself out every night and let the cold and the snow freeze me until I feel absolutely nothing at all.” She looked away from him, relaxing her hands so he could let go. “There. Now will you leave?”

“No.” Olive looked at him quickly. “No, I’m not going to leave, you stupid girl.” She opened her mouth to protest but Balthazar grabbed her face and pulled her to him in a rough kiss. “If you think,” he said, pulling away from her to rest his forehead against hers. “For one second, that I’m going to leave you here to wallow in your misery and self-pity and pain, you are truly the stupidest woman I have ever known.” He kissed her again, this time softly. “You aren’t worthless, Olive. And it certainly wasn’t an accident that you were pulled here. There’s a reason for it.”

She scoffed. “I thought you were against the whole fate thing? Tear up the script, free will, all that?”

“Well, of course. I do believe in free will. But for every cause there is an effect, and vice versa. So, for some reason, someone or something had you brought to this world. Whatever that reason is, this is the result. And look what you’ve already done with that result. You saved me. So if I ever hear you say you are worthless again–”

“You’ll what?”

“Hug you and kiss you and make love to you until you never feel that way again.”

Olive chuckled softly. “Thank you, Balthazar.” As she curled up with him again on the bed, she knew she wasn’t anywhere close to being okay yet, but she was one step closer to it because of the love she’d been shown.


	7. Chapter Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Godstiel is a ginormous dickwad. Character death.

Balthazar said to Olive, “I’m going on a little trip today. I won’t be long. Promise me you won’t have any emotional breakdowns while I’m gone?”

The archangel stuck her bottom lip out in a mock pout. “But where are you going?”

“That, my dear, is a secret.” He smiled when her pout increased. “I promise you’ll like what I’m bringing back for you.”

She smiled brightly. “Oh, if you’re going to get me a present, then that’s fine.”

“I spoil you far too much,” he laughed, giving her kiss on the forehead. “I’ll be back before you even notice I’m gone.” And he vanished, leaving her smiling. She walked out to the balcony, resting her arms on the railing and leaning against it as she surveyed the city below her. The conversation they’d had two days ago about her self-harming had managed to bring a little bit of sense back to her and she’d stopped going to Antarctica every night. Though she wasn’t going to lie to herself and believe that all her pain and feelings of worthlessness had been wiped away by one honest conversation, she did believe that it had been the beginning of something new. Something beautiful.

She laughed to herself as she thought back to her life on the other side. For a long time she’d felt purposeless, spending her nights in dingy motel rooms with strange men to pay for drugs that made her forget those men and motels. She’d always felt so alone in her depression, as though no one else knew what it was like. But when she’d discovered that Jared Padalecki struggled with depression, she’d cried. Someone like him knew what it was like to deal with the things she dealt with? She’d never felt better in her life. If Jared could handle his depression while filming a television show and going to conventions to meet fans and raising a family, then she could handle her depression and get a job to pay the rent. Her periods of getting clean and having a job always coincided with her watching an episode or two of Supernatural.

Now, though, she could never go back. But since that conversation with Balthazar, she’d begun to see that she could do something here, that as an angel she could have more purpose than ever. She’d started watching and listening to the residents of the city, calming collicky babies and pulling people from the paths of cars. Olive sighed, knowing she wouldn’t be able to stay away from the Winchesters for long, knowing they could use the help of an archangel once the Leviathans appeared.

Her thoughts were interrupted when a voice from behind her said, “Olive.”

A chill ran down her spine. She’d know that voice anywhere. She turned and said, “Castiel.” She took in the blisters that covered his face and hands, arching an eyebrow. “I have to admit, I used to think were a hell of a looker, but nowadays I think you’re wearing kind of thin.”

“You said opening Purgatory was a bad idea. But look at me. I destroyed Raphael and his followers. I have punished the wicked. Tell me how that is bad.”

“You’re not God, Castiel. God is out there still, somewhere.” Chuck Shurley’s face flashed through her head as she thought of the fan-theory that said the prophet was actually God himself. “Just because you have all this power now doesn’t mean you can decide what is right and what is wrong in the world. That is not your place and it never has been.”

“It is my place!” he insisted as she moved inside, away from the view of the street. “I am the only one who cares what happens to this world!”

“You’re not.” She motioned outside. “Why don’t you go ask the mothers who has been curing their babies of diseases they believed incurable? Ask the fathers who pulled their children from the path of a speeding car. It wasn’t you, Castiel. You’re too busy looking at the big picture to notice the small details.”

Castiel’s face slowly grew more and more furious as he listened to her. “You don’t even belong here,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “You have no place in this world. Who gave you the right to take care of my people?”

“Whoever saved my life by bringing me to this universe as I died in the other. Whoever made me an archangel gave me the right to care for those who need it most.”

The blue-eyed angel tilted his head. “You’re dead in the other universe?”

“Yes.”

He was silent for a moment and seemed to be considering something. “Tell me what you know.”

“About what?”

“About everything. The souls, the future.”

“You’re assuming I’ve even seen episodes past the opening of Purgatory.”

He rushed forward, grabbing her by the front of her shirt and pressing her against a wall. “Don’t lie to me,” he growled.

Olive was frightened by the sheer strength of the former angel, but she forced herself to take a breath and say something witty. “I always thought you’d like it rough, but this is a bit much.”

“Tell me what you know, now, or I will kill you.”

“Now, that’s not very smart. If you want to know so badly, killing me’s not going to get you anywhere.” Castiel punched her, her head snapping to the side from the force of the punch. She could feel blood running from her nose as she looked back at him, eyes narrowed. “Nice try, but I don’t break that easily.” He threw her across the room, causing the wall to crumble slightly when she hit it. She smiled grimly as she pushed herself up and looked at him. “Better get used to that power. You’re not always going to have it.”

“Liar!” he shouted, using his powers to pick her up by the neck and press her against the wall.

“Ha!” She bared her teeth. “The souls take you over eventually. They break you, break your vessel and escape.” She laughed. “You die.”

As he approached her, he pulled out his angel blade. “You’re lying,” he said before bringing it down, cutting a long, deep cut across her torso.

She gritted her teeth against the pain and said, “There’s no amount of pain you can inflict on me that I haven’t already experienced from my own hand.” His eyes narrowed, confused for a moment. “So go ahead. Cut me, bleed me, punch me, throw me against a wall. But you will get nothing out of me but your own demise.” His eyes flared with anger again and he backed away from her, sending her across the room again. His blade followed her, impaling her through the lower back as she hit the wall. She was forced to hang there on the blade, tears leaking from her eyes, as made his slow way to her.

Castiel yanked the blade away and allowed her to fall to the floor, watching her sit up against the wall with a wince. Olive looked into his eyes and saw that he was done with her, that he was ready to kill her. And he brought his arm back, blade poised for the killing blow. As the blade fell, Balthazar appeared from thin air right in front of her, taking the blade to his heart. “NO!” she screamed as he collapsed on top of her. Castiel released the blade, stepping back as a white glow began to emanate from Balthazar.

“Olive,” Balthazar said, cupping her face. “This was my choice. Nothing you could do.”

“Balthazar,” she whispered, tears streaming freely down her face.

“Let go of me,” he choked out, trying to push her away. “Wings…” But she only held him tighter as he died, never looking away from him as his grace exploded. She screamed in pain as it burned the outline of his wings onto her body and the floor. When the light faded, she sat there, sobbing, waiting for her own death. Castiel stepped forward again, yanked his blade from the body of his former friend, and prepared to kill the archangel. Then a groan left his mouth and he pressed a hand to his stomach. When Olive looked up, she saw his stomach bulging in strange ways, as though someone was inside trying to break out. She scoffed.

“Remember what I said about the souls escaping?” she rasped, voice thick from tears.

Castiel glared at her then vanished without a word. She stared at the spot where he had been standing for a moment or two, then looked back down at Balthazar. He was already going cold, his eyes staring lifelessly up at the ceiling. Silently, Olive shut his eyes and kissed the left one, then the right. In the next instant she was standing on a sunny hillside, Balthazar in her arms. She laid him down gently in the grass and snapped her fingers, a shovel appearing in her hand. She began to dig a grave for him, overlooking the valley of vineyards from which came the grapes in his favorite wine. She was covered in blood, still bleeding in many places, and her clothes were ragged, burned and hanging off her body but if someone had appeared she wouldn’t have cared. She just threw herself into the task of digging, allowing a kind of numbness to take over.

When she finished, Olive knelt down beside Balthazar one last time. She cupped his face and leaned down to kiss his lips. “Thank you,” she whispered. “For everything.” Snapping her fingers, she wrapped him in a white sheet and picked him up, preparing to put him in the grave. That’s when she remembered that he had left to get her something but he hadn’t had time to give to her, if he had indeed gotten it. She searched him quickly and found a thin black box in his pocket. Taking it and putting it to the side, she placed his body gently in the ground and covered it with dirt. Then she put up a simple slab of dark granite and, in Enochian, carved a simple epitaph: “Balthazar, the angel who made his own decisions and was killed for making the right ones.”

Pressing her fingers to her lips and then to the stone, Olive whispered, “Rest in peace now, Balthazar, my dear.” And then she was gone, a quiet whoosh of wings showing her departure. She stood once again in the house she’d occupied with him, staring at the wreckage of the room where Castiel had found her. The ends of the scorch marks of Balthazar’s wings marked a wall and the floor and she looked down at herself, examining the angry red flesh where his wings had been. That’s when she noticed the black box again and she slowly opened it, revealing a thin silver chain on which was hung a diamond and ruby tear-shaped pendant. There was a small piece of paper wedged into the top of the box and she pulled it out and unfolded it.

“For you” it read. “As a thank you for saving my life, and as a reminder that you are worth more than you know. Let this be the last drop of blood that appears on your skin from your own hands. Yours, Balthazar.” Fresh tears slipped down Olive’s face and she fell to the floor, sobbing. After a long while, she sat up and wiped the tears from her face. With a snap of her fingers she cleaned and healed herself, though she knew it’d be a while before she would be back at full strength after a beating like that. Then she replaced her torn clothes with another set from her backpack and carefully put the necklace around her neck, tucking the note from Balthazar into her pocket. Then with one final snap she restored the home to its original state and disappeared.

~

In Bobby’s basement, he, Dean, and Sam had almost convinced Crowley to give them a spell to bind Death. Crowley had looked down and was pouring himself another drink when Olive appeared between them with a sound of wings. The demon looked up, afraid it was Castiel, but his face quickly changed to quizzical when he saw the small woman standing in front of him. She returned his stare then turned to the others, who were staring at her with equal confusion. “Bobby,” she said, voice hoarse from crying. “Boys.” Then she took a step towards them but winced and stumbled when pain lanced through her body, aftereffects of the wounds she’d healed.

“Woah,” Sam said, moving forward to help her.

At almost the exact same time, Dean said, “Hey now,” and grabbed her arm to keep her upright.

“I’m good, I’m good,” she said, waving Sam away and gently shaking off Dean’s hands. “Just something left over from my run-in with Castiel earlier today.”

“Run-in?” Bobby asked.

“Yeah, he wanted to know how all this ended.”

“Did you tell him?” Sam asked.

“In a way. I twisted the truth the bit, but it was still the truth.” She laughed humorlessly. “He thought I was lying, so he tried to torture the real truth from me.”

“Castiel tortured you?” Crowley interjected. “And you still manage to look this good afterwards? I’m impressed. Who are you?”

She turned to him with a sigh. “Look, Crowley,” she said, surprising him with her knowledge of his name. “I’m only going to say this once.” She flexed her wings, manifesting them behind her for him to see. “My name is Olive, I’m an archangel from another universe, and while usually I would have qualms about changing the course of the future in this universe, I’ve done it once already by saving a life, and I’ll change it again by taking yours if you annoy me. Are we clear?”

It was obvious that Crowley had questions, but there was a tiny bit of fear in his eyes too, and he contented himself with the reply, “Crystal.”

“Good.” She turned back around. “There’s a lot we need to talk about. When you’re finished here, I’ll be upstairs.” And in a blink she was gone again.

After they had gotten Crowley to agree to get them a spell to bind Death, the three hunters headed upstairs to find Olive stretched out on her back on the couch, regarding the pendant of her necklace in the light streaming through the windows. “Hey,” Dean said, perching at her feet on the arm of the couch. Sam grabbed a chair, dragged it to the couch and sat down. “So you wanna tell us where you’ve been? And what happened to you?”

She sighed and sat up a bit, leaning against the other arm of the couch. Bobby walked in with beers, handing her and the boys one before leaning against his desk. “Thanks,” she said, popping it open and taking a swig. “I went to Balthazar. He helped me break down the last bit of wall in my head, making me a full angel. I can hear people’s thoughts if I try, but most of all I hear their prayers. I can see anything and everything and I can be there in a thought. He taught me how to use my powers to full capacity, and then…” she paused, trying to decide whether or not to tell them about the other universe. She remembered all those times she’d yelled at the television, telling the characters on screen that if everyone was honest, things would be better. So she took a deep breath and continued.

“I tried to go back.” Her voice was quiet and they all leaned in to hear. “I tried to go back to my universe, because that was where I belonged, right? I belonged there, as a human, not here as an archangel. So I tried but it didn’t work because I– I’m dead, over there. I had overdosed on alcohol and drugs and a car hit me when I was wandering around in the snowstorm. When you guys found me I was in pretty bad shape, right? Well, getting hit by a car while higher than heaven will do that to a person. I only survived because I was dragged over here and made an angel. So I couldn’t go back.” She took another swig of the light amber liquid and continued to tell her story, only leaving out the details about her most recent self-harming in the middle of the frozen wastes of Antarctica.

When she finished, Olive looked up at them, not knowing what reactions to expect from them. Dean’s jaw was clenched in his trademark expression of anger, Sam was looking at her with pity and sadness, and Bobby’s expression was neutral, though the slump in his shoulders gave off a sense of defeat. She waited for them to say something, and finally Sam said, “I’m so sorry, Olive.”

She nodded. “Me too.”

“We gotta find a way to stop that son of a bitch,” Dean said, standing and walking away from the couch. “He’s killed too many people to get away with it.”

“Don’t worry, Dean,” Olive said, deciding to tell him part of what was going to happen. “We will. Crowley’s gonna pull through for us, and we’ll get what we need, and Death will help us. Although he’s not gonna like it.”

“Huh.” A thought hit the elder Winchester and he turned to her. “Hey, you think if I get him some of that cheap food he like, he’ll take it better?”

His brother and Bobby looked at him incredulously and she couldn’t help it. For the first time that day, she smiled and laughed, saying, “Sure, Dean, give it a try.” Of course she knew what the answer really was, but she didn’t want to give any more details away. So she laughed and settled back to wait for Crowley to deliver that spell.


	8. Chapter Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Godstiel is (still) a ginormous dickwad, Leviathan!Cas is possibly more of a giant Dick (lol), and there's a huge fight and a lot of blood and almost dying.

It didn’t take long for Crowley to have the spell delivered, and even less time for Bobby to get most of the ingredients for the spell. “We’re gonna have to make a run for a few things.” the grizzled hunter said as he placed a jar on his desk.

“Like?” Dean asked.

Olive appeared, having disappeared earlier saying she was getting something. “Fulgurate,” she said, holding up a large, jagged crystal. “Lightning plus sand equals crystallized act of God.”

“If you knew we needed that,” Sam asked. “Why didn’t you just tell us the spell?”

“You guys were a television show, alright? The writers couldn’t go and put in whole spells with all the ingredients. Crazed fans would set their houses on fire just trying to talk to Crowley.”

“Talk to Crowley?” Dean was incredulous. “Who would want to do that?”

The archangel shrugged. “Some people really like complicated baddies with good taste in scotch. In any case, the writers never put in the whole binding Death spell, just your little escapade to get the fulgurate. I’ll have you know, I saved an innocent couple from being traumatized by three armed men breaking in, tying them to chairs, vandalizing their valuables, and then summoning a fairly angry Death in the middle of their living room.”

“Angry? Death was angry?”

“Of course he was angry, Dean. You. Bound. Him.”

The elder Winchester looked away, slightly nervous, and Olive handed the fulgurate to Bobby. “You should have everything now. Go ahead and do the spell.”

“Wait, what about–” Dean started but she interrupted him.

“Best fried pickle chips in the state,” she said, clearing a space on the dining room table and setting down a brown paper bag and lidded cup. “Do it, Bobby. And guys? Try to be respectful, even though you’ve bound him. This is Death, after all.”

Bobby mixed the spell and dropped a lit match into the bowl. For a moment, nothing happened. Dean walked forward, hesitant. “Um… hello?” he said. “Death?”

“You’re joking.” Death appeared, standing in front of the dining room table.

“I’m sorry, Death. This isn’t what it seems.”

The head reaper raised his arms, showing an iridescent, nearly invisible chain stretching between his wrists. “Seems like you bound me.”

“For good reason, okay? Just uh, hear us out. Um… fried pickle chip?” Dean motioned towards the bag on the table.

“That easy to soothe me, you think?” As Death’s gaze had gone from Dean to the table, he’d caught sight of Olive, leaning casually in the doorway between kitchen and living room. “You’re new,” he said, looking her up and down. “And not from this universe.”

The archangel smirked. “Right on both counts, Death. But I’m not the reason they bound you, and it’s not about Sam’s hallucinations, either. They want you to kill God.”

Death raised one eyebrow. “Why should I?”

“Well, they do have you bound right now, but more than that, you know that the man who’s calling himself God right now isn’t really God.”

“Amazing.” Castiel’s voice came from the doorway to the front hall. His face was covered in angry red welts, as were the backs of his hands.

“Cas,” Sam said.

“I didn’t want to kill you, but now…”

“You can’t kill us,” Dean said, managing to keep most of his fear out of his voice.

“You’ve erased any nostalgia I had for you, Dean.”

The god-angel raised his hand, preparing to snap and end Dean’s life, when Olive interjected, “They’ve bound Death, Castiel.”

That’s when Cas looked to his right and saw her standing next to Death. “Annoying little protozoa, aren’t they?” the head reaper said as he took a few steps closer. “Except for her. She’s interesting.”

“She’s a nuisance,” the former angel countered. “She should be dead right now.”

“Hm.” Death considered the man in the trench coat. “‘God’? You look awfully like a mutated angel to me. Your vessel’s melting. You’re going to explode.”

“No, I’m not. When I’ve finished my work, I’ll repair myself.” Olive scoffed, earning glances from the two powerful beings facing off.

“Apparently, she also knows that you gulped in far older things than souls from Purgatory. Far more dangerous things.”

“Irrelevant. I control them.”

“Liar,” Olive muttered under her breath. Death and Castiel turned to look at her. “The only reason you didn’t kill me last time we saw each other is because the Leviathans were trying to break out of you. You left to get them under control.”

“Wait, Leviathans?” Dean asked.

“Long before God created Angel and man,” Death explained. “He made the first beasts – Leviathans. I personally found them entertaining, but he was concerned they’d chomp the entire petri dish, so he locked them away. Why do you think he created Purgatory? To keep those clever, poisonous things out.”

“So when Cas opened Purgatory and took all the souls,” Olive said. “He swallowed all the Leviathans as well. And they’re going to break out of him.” She looked into his eyes as she said, “I told you opening Purgatory was a bad idea.”

“Enough,” the former angel said.

“Stupid little soldier you are.” Death took another few steps closer.

“Why? Because I dared open a door that he shut?” Castiel closed the gap until they were barely inches away. “Where is he? I did a service, taking his place.”

“Service? Settling petty vendettas?”

“No. I’m cleaning up one mess after another – selflessly.”

“Quite the humanitarian.”

“And how would you know? What are you, really? A flyswatter?”

“Destined to swat you, I think.”

“Unless I take you first.”

“Really bought his own press, this one. Please, Cas. I know God, and you, sir, are no God.”

“Alright,” Dean said, getting impatient. “Put your junk away, both of you. Look, call him what you want. Just kill him now!” Castiel turned and glared at Dean.

“Alright,” Death said. “Fine.” He raised his hand, but then the god-angel snapped and the chain flared briefly before shattering and disappearing. “Thank you. Shall we kickbox now?” Olive smirked a bit at his sarcasm as Death turned away and went back to the fried pickle chips. “I had a tingle I’d be reaping someone very, very soon.” Castiel disappeared silently. “Well, he was in a hurry.”

There was an awkward silence as Death began eating the pickle chips. Olive knew where Castiel had gone, knew what he was going to do. She knew she had to decide whether or not she was going to let him kill all those people. On one hand, that point when he goes crazy and kills all the people in the campaign office leads to him giving up the souls of his own accord. On the other hand, that’s about thirty people dying to make him realize his mistake. If she went to stop him, she could probably save most of the people there, but she might end up dead herself. Well, she had already died once before, basically, so what did it matter if she died again? And if she saved lives in the process, then it wasn’t in vain, was it? She came to a decision and started zapping back and forth quickly, taking workers quietly to their homes before Castiel could get there.

She did it so quickly that no one but Death would have noticed her absences. When he was finished with the pickle chips Olive stopped, knowing she would have to explain some things before leaving to confront Castiel. Dean and Sam were exchanging glances, and when Dean said, “Uh,” both she and Death said, “Shut up, Dean.”

“I’m not here to tie your shoes every time you trip,” Death continued. “I warned you about those souls how long ago? Long enough to stop that fool. And here we are again, with your little planet on the edge of immolation.”

“Okay, look,” Olive said, acting quickly to save more lives. “Death. These three have done their best. Nothing was going to stop that angel from opening Purgatory. I knew what was coming and I told him it was a bad idea and that didn’t even stop him. What’s going to happen now is you’re going to make another eclipse so that we can get Castiel to give up all those souls.”

“And why would I do that? You don’t think I care what happens to this planet?”

“No, you don’t care. But you do find that angel arrogant. And you do like me.”

“I find you intriguing.” Death considered the archangel for a moment. “Fine. Three-fifty-nine Sunday morning, just before dawn. Be punctual.” He pointed at Dean, who had opened his mouth to speak. “Don’t thank me. Clean up your mess. Try to bind me again, you’ll die before you start.” As he walked out, he said to Olive, “Nice pickle chips, by the way.” And then he was gone.

Dean spoke. “What did you just do?”

Olive turned to him, checking on the status at the campaign office as she answered. “I’ve given you a chance to fix this. You can open the door to Purgatory again so that Castiel can put all the souls back.” She frowned; Castiel was arguing with the senator’s aide.

“Why would he do that?” Bobby asked, snapping her back to his house.

“I don’t have time to explain. He’s going to kill again, soon, and I think I can stop him. Just get to that lab and get it ready. When the time comes, he’ll give up the souls.” Dean looked ready to argue but she said, “Trust me.” Then she zapped away to the campaign office.

Olive could hear Castiel in the front as he said, “I am a better God than my father. How can I make you understand?” She zapped a few more people to their homes before she heard him laugh maniacally. Her blood ran cold and she knew the time had come. With a snap she was in the front room and everyone else was sent home, leaving just her and Cas. She noticed the small line of black goo that was leaking from his nose; the Leviathans had taken control. He narrowed his eyes at her, seeming confused.

“Well, well, I guess I’m talking to the Leviathans right now?” she asked, crossing her arms.

“You know who we are?” His voice was higher, his speech not as stiff as it usually was.

“I know a lot of things. I know that Castiel’s still in there someone, fighting to take control again. I also knew I wasn’t going to let you kill any of the people here.”

“We’ll just have to settle for killing you, then.”

“You can try.”

A bone-chilling laugh left Castiel’s mouth, and then he was lunging at her. She grabbed him by his shirt collar and threw him to the ground, sending him sliding back into a plastic table. “Cas,” she said as she took a few steps closer to him. “Cas, I know you’re in there still.”

He kicked out at her, swiping her feet from beneath her and knocking her to the floor. “He can’t hear you, you know,” he said, swinging his arm to punch her. She rolled out of the way just in time. “He’s locked away at the bottom, helpless.” Olive tried to use her angel powers against him, to throw him against a wall, but he only laughed as he felt her grace tug at him ineffectively. “Leviathan beats angel. We’re older than your kind.”

“I’ll just have to do this the old-fashioned way, then.” She stood and grabbed him again, throwing him into the far wall. He stood slowly as she walked over and said, “Come on, Cas. You have to fight them.”

As soon as she was close, he moved suddenly, grabbing her wrist and twisting it behind her back. Then he kicked her from behind, sending her to the floor and into another table. “Little Castiel,” he said as she pushed herself up. “Just trying to do the right thing, and failing miserably. He was intrigued by you, you know.” He bent down quickly and punched her in the face, causing her to fall to the floor again. “And now he’s gonna get to watch you die.” His hands grabbed her shirt and threw her, smashing a poster-board for the senator’s campaign.

He stalked towards her, ignoring the blood on his face, and she reached out to him with her grace, hoping to stir up Castiel’s soul to fight again. “Castiel, please,” she whispered. He knelt down over her and punched her. Her head snapped to the side but she kept using her grace, searching for his soul amid all the billions inside his vessel. “I know you can fight them.” Another punch, but this time she smiled as she felt the angel’s soul flutter against her grace, growing stronger as she fed it hope. “I believe in you, Castiel. Fight them.”

A shudder ran through Castiel’s body, and the Leviathans asked, “What are you doing?”

“Winning.” They once again had control of his body and they renewed the assault on her, throwing her against walls and tables, punching her until she could barely see from all the blood. But she ignored the pain because she was slowly using her grace to urge Castiel to fight back against the Leviathans.

They had her pinned against a wall, holding her up by her throat, when the Leviathans said, “Who’s winning now?” and plunged a hand into her stomach. Olive would have screamed if she wasn’t being choked by his other hand. Her vision blacked out as she pushed her grace against Castiel’s soul one last time. As her eyes closed, she felt his grip on her throat loosen and his hand was removed from her stomach. There were two thuds as she and Castiel fell to the floor at the same time.

~

When Castiel opened his eyes, he found himself lying in a puddle of blood next to Olive. His arm was covered in blood up to his elbow and he could feel it dripping down the sides of his face. As he pushed himself up on one hand, he looked over and found the source of the blood: the archangel had a gaping hole in her stomach, from which blood was still flowing. “No, no, no,” he said, reaching a hand to her neck before remembering that angels have no pulse. But as he drew his hand away, she breathed out slightly, the puff of air brushing across his hand. “Olive?” She didn’t respond and Castiel was about to reach out and heal her when he heard a prayer from Sam. He ignored it for a moment and tried to heal her, but his powers weren’t working. Five failed attempts later, he sighed and slumped over. He could feel the Leviathans inside him still, fighting to get out.

He replayed Sam’s prayer in his head. “We still have ‘til dawn to stop this. Let us help. Please.” Castiel realized the Winchesters were the only way to fix what he’d done, and Bobby’s house would be the safest place for Olive to heal. Removing her hoodie, he wrapped it around her torso, covering the hole in her stomach and tying it into a tight knot to slow the blood flow. As he slipped his arms gently beneath her knees and upper back, she stirred and murmured, “Castiel.”

“Don’t worry,” he said, grunting as he carefully stood. “We’re going to get help.” He zapped away, appearing in doorway to Bobby’s kitchen. “Sam,” he said, swaying with the effort of carrying Olive as well as keeping his own battered body upright.

“Cas?” Sam turned to him. Dean’s eyes were wide as he took in the sight of the two angels covered in blood.

“I heard your call.” The former angel’s knees gave out and he collapsed to the floor, Olive nearly tumbling from his arms. “I need help.” The brothers rushed to him, Dean taking Olive from him gently and Sam helping him to a chair at the table. “Be careful with her. She is injured very badly.” Dean carried the archangel to the couch and carefully pulled off her blood-soaked hoodie, revealing the large hole.

“Sam, get the first aid kit and the stuff to sew her up. This is bad.” The younger Winchester ran off as Bobby entered and saw Olive on the couch.

“What the hell happened?” he asked after seeing Castiel in almost as bad shape.

“The Leviathans took control and she stopped them from slaughtering the people in a campaign office. But they almost killed her before she managed to help me regain control of my vessel.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “I almost killed her.”

“Why isn’t she healing herself?” Dean asked as Sam rushed back in, moving away from the couch so his younger brother could sew her up.

“She used her grace to give me strength to fight the Leviathans. She can’t heal herself because her grace is nearly gone. It will have to replenish itself before she can fully heal.” For a moment there was silence as they watched Sam carefully close the gaping wound in her stomach. Once he was finished and was carefully bandaging it, Castiel spoke again. “We need to get to the lab so I can put the souls back. I won’t be able to hold them much longer.”

“Shouldn’t someone stay with Olive in case she wakes up?” Sam asked, standing.

“She will not wake any time soon. Now that the bleeding has been stopped and the wound is closed, she will sleep soundly so her grace will replenish. She should not wake from that until after you have returned from the lab.”

“Alright, let’s get going then,” Dean said, clapping his hands and grabbing the keys for the Impala. “We’ll have to drive fast to get there.” Sam helped Castiel stand and follow Bobby and Dean out, both of them casting a final glance at Olive as she lay on the couch, covered by an old quilt.

~

As Sam struggled against Hallucifer and Dean drew the symbol on the wall to open Purgatory, Olive stirred in her sleep on Bobby’s couch. She muttered strings of nonsense to an empty house, occasionally letting slip “Castiel” or “souls” or “Purgatory”. She grew more and more agitated as the eclipse drew closer, writhing on the couch as the souls streamed out of Castiel back into Purgatory. She relaxed when he fell to the floor, apparently dead. Then he was alive, and she frowned in her sleep and whispered, “They held on.” And when Cas shouted “Leviathan,” she screamed it too, jolting awake.

“Oh God,” she said, pressing a hand to her stomach as she remembered the fight at the campaign office. She discovered the stitches, but when she tried to heal herself, she found she didn’t have enough grace. Olive took stock of herself, noting how much grace she had and how much she would need to make it to the lab to help the boys. But as she closed her eyes and risked a little grace to reach out with her mind, she realized she was too late. The Leviathans had taken Castiel’s vessel and were heading for the water reservoir. “Dammit,” she muttered. She thought quickly, weighing each option that came to mind.

There was no chance she could stop the Leviathans from getting into the water system, since she was in no shape to fight them again. She knew Castiel would be resurrected along the river that ran from the reservoir, but she didn’t know where and she didn’t have the grace to spend looking for him yet. What she did have was time. The more she thought, the more she became determined she knew what to do. It would take Sam, Dean, and Bobby about seven hours to get back to South Dakota after the Leviathans infiltrated the water system, and by then she could be well enough to go out on her own.

Olive laid back down carefully, shutting her eyes as she made a plan. Sure, they wouldn’t like it, but they wouldn’t have a choice about it. If it worked out like she wanted, she would be gone before they even made it back.


	9. Chapter Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Olive is recooperating from her fight with Leviathan!Cas and also trying to take care of Emmanuel!Cas at the same time. Complicated, I know.

When the Winchester brothers and Bobby returned from Kansas, they found an empty house and a neatly written note taking the place of Olive on the couch. Don’t worry, it read. I’m not leaving for good. There are some things I have to take care of, and I can’t stay at Bobby’s with you any more. If you need me, just pray to me like you prayed to Castiel, and I’ll hear you. I’m not gonna lie. Things aren’t pretty right now: Sam’s got Hallucifer to deal with and Leviathans are loose in the world. But I promise I will be here to help no matter what. I’ll see you boys soon. Olive. Dean cursed, crumpling the paper and throwing it across the room.

~

Those seven hours had given her enough grace to stop the internal bleeding from the wound in her stomach, with enough left over to search for traces of Castiel’s grace along the river in Kansas. When she hadn’t found a trace, she remembered that the woman who’d found Castiel in the show had lived in Colorado, so Olive broadened her search and found a faint sense of him in the middle of a forest there. She laughed a little when her angel knowledge told her he had been resurrected in a river next to the Mount of the Holy Cross and she zapped over. It took more of her grace than she expected and she exhaled sharply when she arrived, falling against a tree for support.

After a moment, she noticed the sound of splashing and she looked over to the river, snapping her fingers to create a backpack that she slung over her shoulder. A moment later, Castiel appeared, soaked to the bone and naked as a baby. “Hey,” she called out to him, pushing off the tree with a grunt. His head turned to her and he looked so confused and lost. Her heart ached for him as she walked towards him. “Are you okay?” she asked for appearance’s sake.

“I believe so,” he said, then looked down at himself. “Though I appear to have lost my clothing.”

“Not a problem.” Olive swung the backpack off her shoulder again and unzipped it, creating a towel inside that she pulled out and handed to him. “Here, dry off.” While he did so, she snapped again, quietly, and underwear, a pair of jeans, a t-shirt, and a blue hoodie appeared inside the backpack. She pulled all these out and handed them to him, taking the wet towel from him and stuffing it back into the backpack.

“Thank you,” Castiel said, pulling the clothes on. There was an awkward silence as he dressed, then he said, “Do you usually wait by rivers for naked men?”

She laughed half-heartedly. “You’re a special case, hon. I’m here to make sure you’re taken care of.”

He squinted and tilted his head before saying, “Are you an angel, then?” She was about to deny it when he said, “I can see your wings, you know. They’re beautiful.”

A genuine smile spread across her face. “Yours are too,” she said, giggling a bit when he spun quickly to see them, like a dog trying to catch his tail. “No, just, hold still,” she reached out and grabbed his arms to stop him. “And spread them out to see them.” His raven-black wings stretched out wide and he looked back and forth between them, a smile slowly growing on his face.

“I’m an angel, too?” he asked, looking at Olive, who nodded. “But why do I only have two wings, and you have six?”

“I’m an archangel,” she answered.

“Oh.” He looked thoughtful. “Do angels have names?”

“Of course, silly. I’m Olive, and you’re–” she hesitated. “Emmanuel.”

“Emmanuel.” He nodded. “And Olive.” He smiled for a few more minutes, admiring their wings, when he motioned around and said, “Why are we in the middle of the woods, Olive? Why do you have to make sure I’m taken care of?”

The archangel’s mind raced, looking for an answer, a lie she could tell that would keep him safe. Her thoughts landed on the name of the episode where Castiel is discovered to be alive by Dean – “The Born-Again Identity” – and she blurted out, “You’re a newborn angel.” His eyebrows furrowed and she ran with it, relying on her imagination to fuel the lie. “Angels are born in holy, natural places. So for you, that was this river on the Mount of the Holy Cross. Archangels are responsible for raising new angels and making sure they learn everything correctly. That’s why I’m here. And honestly,” she couldn’t help adding a little flair. “You ought to be glad it’s me. Raphael was a hard ass, Michael acted arrogantly superior, Gabriel had no sense of responsibility, and Lucifer, well, Lucifer didn’t really hold with the rules at all.”

“You talk about them in the past tense, like they’re dead.”

“Uh, no.” Olive just couldn’t stop lying. “Just out of the picture for now. Heaven’s in a bit of a weird situation at the moment. Which means your learning will be just that much more hands-on here on Earth.”

“We won’t be going to heaven?” Castiel sounded a little disappointed.

“Not for a while, no.” She decided to work in a little wiggle room for herself in case the Winchesters called. “I will have to report in from time to time, tell the others how you are progressing, but otherwise we will be living here on Earth while I instruct you.”

“Where will we live?”

“You are full of questions,” she said, smiling at him. “I haven’t picked our home out yet. I wanted to get your opinion. There are many places we could live.”

“I know nothing of Earth.”

“I’ll show you, then.” She took his hand and carefully, using the last vestiges of her grace, transported them to the top of the mountain they were on. “Look around.” Olive watched Castiel’s face fill with wonder as he took in the trees and mountains and valleys of Colorado. She went to step forward but found herself weak and knew that she needed to rest, for a long time, and soon. She started considering where they could go to remain incognito but still do good among the people.

“This place is amazing,” he said, breaking into her train of thought. “It’s beautiful.”

“This is just one mountain range,” she replied. “There are so many others.” She had an idea. “We’ll start with the first lesson: flying. It’s more like transporting yourself from one place to another, like I just did to get us here. All you have to do, though, is imagine where you want to be, think about it hard and in great detail, and then you will be there. So let’s have you try it.”

“How can I transport us anywhere? I don’t know any details of anywhere.”

“I’ll describe a place to you, and once you think you’ve got it down in your mind well enough, just decide that’s where you want to be. And we’ll see how it goes.” He nodded, and she brought up memories of an island. “The place I want you to take us is an island. There are valleys there, and one very old, volcanic mountain. The sides of the hills aren’t covered in trees, though. They’re covered in grapevines, as far as the eye can see. There’s one hill that’s bare in the midst of all these hills, and it’s got the best view. To the east you can see the mountain, and in all other directions you see rolling hills covered in vineyards. Past them, you can see the faint blue shimmer of the Mediterranean Sea, and the beauty of small, white-washed homes in a little village on the coast. The sun beats down, warm and soft, and the breeze passes by, gentle and smelling of salt.” And in that moment they were standing there on that hillside, gulls calling out to them as the sun set.

She looked around, breathing in the familiar air, when she saw the stone she’d erected for Balthazar. The pain of his loss hit her afresh, and she let go of Castiel’s hand to fall on her knees in front of it. Tears filled her eyes but she frowned when she noticed the dirt had yet to settle fully, and she thought back quickly, trying to remember how long it’d been since she’d last knelt here. Two days? Had it only been two days? Two days since the man who stood behind her had killed the man who laid buried beneath her. She couldn’t believe she had gotten so swept up in returning the souls to Purgatory that she’d forgotten the angel who’d helped her begin to heal.

“Olive?” Castiel’s voice broke through to her. “Olive, who was Balthazar?”

“I–” she paused, taking a moment to compose herself. “I suppose this will be part of your lesson today. I hadn’t thought…” She took a deep breath. “Balthazar was one of the few angels who quickly and easily adjusted to the idea of free will. There were many choices he made that were questionable, but when an old friend found him and asked for his help, he obliged. That friend was another angel called Castiel, and I will tell you his full story later, but for now, just know that Castiel allowed power to go to his head, and in his wrath and arrogance, he attempted to kill me, but Balthazar jumped in the way and sacrificed himself for me. That’s who Balthazar was.”

There was silence. Olive wondered if even just mentioning Castiel’s name would trigger his memory and cause him to remember everything, but after a moment he said, “I am sorry. I believe I would have liked to meet this Balthazar.”

“Yes. He would have liked you.” There was the soft impact of knees hitting the ground and she knew he had knelt next to her. His hand was heavy as he placed it on her shoulder in an attempt to comfort her. She brought her own hand up and twined her fingers in his as she let silent tears slip down her face.

~

Eventually, they settled on getting a flat in London. Olive had considered living in India or China or somewhere in Africa, but she knew they would have stuck out like sore thumbs, especially when they started performing “miracles” like she was intending to do. Yeah, the Winchesters hardly ever paid attention to international monster news, but Bobby might, especially if they had asked him to find her. So she picked out a flat in London, where they would mingle and fit in and maybe she could teach him something about pride and humility while they were incognito.

In the process of acquiring the flat, she had taught him about creating things from thin air and manipulating the minds of humans. “Is that not wrong?” he asked as they walked away from meeting with their landlord.

“If it were harming them,” she answered. “Then it would be wrong. We’re merely fabricating identities for ourselves so that we have a place to stay. We’re still paying the man full price for the flat.”

“But we are lying. Isn’t that… bad?”

If she was gonna be honest, she would have said yes. But she’d already been lying to him, and she was lying by omission to the Winchesters, so she came up with a justification. “Sometimes it is. When you lie with the intention to hurt, that’s bad. And when you lie to protect or help someone, a lot of times that person will get angry because you lied. It’s all about intention, Emmanuel. Why are you lying? What do you intend to do with the result of that lie? And will lying to someone, will withholding certain information hurt someone else? That is what matters.” He had nodded slowly.

The flat was small, the main room being a combined living/dining/kitchen area with a bedroom and bathroom at the back. Letting Castiel do all the flying, from Sicily to India to China to London, had brought her grace back a bit. Enough to let her snap her fingers and bring a futon mattress into existence in the otherwise bare flat. She collapsed onto it with a sigh. “Olive?” the other angel asked. “Are you alright?”

“Not quite,” she answered. “I was injured very badly in a fight with Castiel last night.”

“You keep mentioning Castiel. Will you tell me about him?”

She sighed and looked up at the ceiling. Would telling him about himself trigger a return? If it did, he might be angry at her for lying to him. If it didn’t, she could teach him which decisions he had made were bad and which were good. She decided to risk it and scooted over on the mattress, patting it and saying, “Take a seat. It’s a long story.” She felt the mattress sink a bit under his weight. “Castiel came to Earth, originally, to save the Righteous Man from Hell in order to avert the Apocalypse. He remained on Earth for a good deal of time, getting to know the Righteous Man and his brother. And Castiel fell in love with humanity. That was always God’s plan, you know. For angels to recognize the beauty of humanity and strive to protect them of their own free will and not just because He said so. Anyway, Castiel succeeded in his mission. With the help of the Righteous Man and his brother, they chose family over what Michael called ‘God’s plan’ and they stopped the Apocalypse.

“However, a result of ending the Apocalypse was that Lucifer and Michael were thrown into Lucifer’s Cage in Hell. Michael had been the one in charge of Heaven, the one calling the shots, and with him gone, someone had to step up. It couldn’t be Gabriel, because he was believed to be dead at the hands of Lucifer. So Raphael took the advantage and decided he wanted to restart the Apocalypse and bring about Paradise on Earth. Now, Castiel had been killed, twice, and each time had been resurrected. The only being that can do that is God. Castiel knew he couldn’t let Raphael bring on the Apocalypse again, so he took his resurrection as a sign that God was with him and decided to stop Raphael. But that’s where things went bad. Castiel needed help, but he looked for it in the wrong places. Instead of asking for the help of his friends, he made a deal with the King of Hell to find a way to open Purgatory and use the power of the souls within to defeat Raphael.

“That was a bad idea, but what was even worse was that Castiel lied about what he was doing to his friends. Once they did learn about his plan, they tried to tell him to stop, that it was a bad idea. But he didn’t listen.” Olive glanced over at him, looking for any sign that he recognized the story she was telling. His face only showed thoughtfulness, though, and she continued. “Didn’t listen to the Righteous Man, or his brother, or their mentor, or me. I knew it would not end well if Castiel took the souls. There were worse things in Purgatory than souls. But he ignored our warnings, even hurt one of the friends, in the name of stopping Raphael.”

She sighed. “About a week ago, Castiel opened Purgatory and took the souls. He killed Raphael and called himself God, since he was more powerful than any angel. He attacked me once, in a villa in Sicily, because I was the last archangel in his way. That’s how Balthazar died. And so I helped the Righteous Man find a way to get Castiel to give the souls back, put them back in Purgatory. Last night, he and I fought, though it was really the Leviathans within his vessel that were fighting me. I nearly died before I was able to help him regain control of his vessel. He gave up the souls but the Leviathans had stayed with him and took control of his body again. Their goal was to get out into other people, since one angel couldn’t hold them all.” Olive fell silent.

“What happened to Castiel?” he asked.

“He’s dead,” she answered quietly. “The number of Leviathans within him caused his vessel to explode, and they escaped. But he died.”

“I am sorry.”

“Castiel was arrogant and stupid. He asked God for signs when four very obvious ones stood in front of him, telling him what he was doing was wrong and dangerous. But he chose not to listen, and these are consequences.” She looked over and locked eyes with him, taking his hand. “Emmanuel, do not let pride get to you. If you do something amazing and others praise you for it, accept the praise, but do not let past success make you believe you will only ever have success in the future. You must be humble, and kind, and gentle, and above all you must love.”

“Love humanity?”

“Love everyone.” He nodded, though his face looked like he still had questions. But Olive needed to rest and heal and regain her strength, so she said, “I’m going to sleep. Angels don’t need to, but I am still recovering from my fight, and so I’m going to put myself into a deep sleep that will heal me and bring my strength back. You can sleep as well, if you want, or you can sit here. I don’t think you should leave the flat, since you don’t know the world well, but you can use your grace to reach out and see.”

“I’m going to stay awake,” he said. “I will watch over you while you sleep.”

She smiled weakly and released his hand, letting it drop to her stomach and forcing herself into a deep, healing sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter I have written for this series. I might eventually pick it up again but I'm not sure. I kinda lost the moral of the story somewhere back around chapter one (because I started this with a completely different thing in mind). But we'll see, if it gets some notice and people like it.


End file.
